For Asia NOW 2024, Mandy Zhang Art is delighted to present a solo show of Chinese artist Long Huang.

Huang Long’s current artistic practice is centred around a poetic process of converting internal mindscapes into images by drawing from his subconscious. Throughout, Long aims to convey the unstable relationship between reality and perception, resulting in an oeuvre that oscillates between tangible and intangible locales.

This dichotomous relationship is embodied by Long’s latest series, where viewers are thrust into surreal scenes depicting animals in imagined architectural spaces. Characterised by a recurring imagery of pools and psychedelic colours, Long’s paintings fuse inner and outer landscapes in an attempt to convey an embodied sensation of longing. The artist associates this feeling with liminal urban environments, as he oftentimes turns to abandoned buildings for inspiration. Drawing from pre-existing photographs he captures while walking around cities, Long improvises his compositions,
making the viewing and working process of his paintings equally serendipitous. Long seeks to give form to the universal experience of melancholy, longing, and déjà vu by imaging the perceived energy of spaces, rather than real places themselves. This is achieved by his use of unlikely lighting and translucent colours, which subjects viewers to an uncanny viewing experience.

The series’ pictorial focus on man-made enclosures, such as swimming pools and gardens contrasts with the central position of animals, highlighting the very status of cities as enclosures themselves. In this way, Long’s exploration of the pervasive yet inexplicable longing felt by each one of us carries a subliminally romanticist message of longing as the perpetual condition of the citizen. A recurring motif in the series, the handrail, serves both as a guide to the next scene and a specific referent. Viewers can briefly anchor themselves to reality by identifying the motif, yet its presence forebodes the next work, indicating that the search is not complete.

Huang Long graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and BA in Fine Art from University of Utah.