Phenomena of Qi: PAN Hsinhua
Taiwanese artist Pan Hsinhua’s second solo exhibition at the gallery will feature a series of surreal paintings that fuse traditional aspects of Taiwanese culture, medicine, and philosophy with contemporary society and the environment. Pan collapses paradoxical and opposing elements on the picture plane, setting the scene for open-ended narratives unfettered by reality, but rife with iconography.
The artist’s daily creative practice anchors his new body of work and encompasses a wide range of interests and sources of inspiration. Pan draws upon disciplines including numerology, traditional Chinese medicine, folk culture, and atlases, incorporating their motifs and learnings into a contemporary context that is inherently driven by technology and complexity. This contrast is evident in the anachronistic aesthetic of works such as Map of a Man’s Moles (2023) and Practicing the Breath (2025). Pseudoarchaic background painting techniques further underscore this atemporality, as does the juxtaposition of elderly and childlike figures throughout.
Pan cites a host of visual references in his work as well, including Meticulous Painting and Thangka Painting, while forging a distinctive style all his own. Powdered mineral pigments in vibrant shades are mixed with animal glue to create bold hues with an opaque finish and a limited color palette. Innovating upon the medium, Pan has developed a technique that broadens the range of tonalities and textures achievable with this traditional material. The rich
colors that result from the artist’s carefully honed process are reminiscent of the dynamic cave paintings in Dunhuang, weathered over hundreds of years and refined with the patina of time. Pan also adopted the method of boneless wash painting in lieu of outlining and coloring, allowing him to make large-scale works that depict spatial depth and dimension outside of realistic perspective.
From Pan’s technical execution and experimentation to his recurring visual motifs, the dialogue abounds between old and new, past and present. While Pan consciously draws from both ancient and recent history, his own position is decidedly current, situated in a context shaped by heritage and tradition. The artist composes complex scenes of cultural relics like bonsai
trees, literati stones, incense burners, and fans, religious and folk patterns, mythological creatures, and facets of both the natural and built environments, from concrete and architectural fragments to native Taiwanese flora and fauna. Amid this rich symbology, central narratives explore pillars of traditional Chinese medicine, such as the concept of meridians and
the flow of qi – the life force or energy that permeates body and spirit.
Pan’s playful configurations employ paradox to highlight the atemporality of the present moment and the complexities of contemporary culture from a Taiwanese perspective. The artist renders these imagined scenes with a precision that masterfully blurs the entanglements between real and surreal elements. Phenomena of Qi invites the public to explore the
contradictions within each work, and within their own approaches to culture and heritage.
