Jan 16-18 2026
Still life has long been regarded as a window through which we observe the world—it not only depicts the forms of objects but also reflects the artist’s emotions and the traces of time. In a contemporary context, still life, a genre with a long history in art, has been reinterpreted and expanded beyond its traditional boundaries. No longer merely an exercise in form or technique, it has become a means of recording time, memory, and material consciousness. In this exhibition, seven artists from diverse cultural backgrounds revisit and redefine the meaning of still life today through ceramics, painting, and moving image.
The renowned Taiwan-born, U.S.-based artist Daniel Lee presents his experimental series The Third Hue from the 1980s. At a time when digital media had yet to become widespread, Lee employed the dye-transfer printing process to achieve richly layered chromatic effects. His work spans a wide range of subjects—from fruit and flowers to insects, fish, and the human body—assembling these elements through collage into a visual world that is both surreal and absurd.
The work of acclaimed Argentine artist Luciano Polverigiani is marked by strong narrative qualities and vitality. Drawing on traditional South American ceramic techniques, he creates astonishingly lifelike species. These works seem almost to breathe, leading viewers into a fantastical realm filled with imagination and energy.
Brazilian artist Diego Rosendo has created an entirely new series specifically for this exhibition, depicting wild and mysterious exotic plants. His work carries forward the historical and emotional legacy of ceramic culture, resonating with traditional themes from Pernambuco while integrating visions of the contemporary, the global, and the future. The result is a multilayered perspective shaped by cultural depth and the flow of time.
Participating in the exhibition for the first time, Norwegian artist Bjørn Lie constructs uncanny still-life scenes through painting, where nature and fantasy intertwine. His ongoing Ornate Flowers series explores a spirit of adventure within the creative process—behind its seemingly refined surfaces lies an embrace of unpredictability and what he calls “happy accidents.”
Also exhibiting for the first time, Swedish ceramic artist Charlotte Nielsen has devoted more than two decades to ceramic practice. Inspired by close observation of metal structures and organic matter, she evokes sensations of corrosion and the passage of time through dark tones and rough textures. By merging mechanical and organic elements in raku-fired ceramics, she reveals tensions between form and concept through contrast and resonance.
First-time participant and American artist Rebecca Bird creates works that are quiet yet unsettling. Using the language of traditional painting, she situates the present within a historical framework. By depicting intimate, everyday scenes, Bird investigates subjectivity and the subtle relationships between the self, humanity, and nature. For her, the studio functions as a lens, concentrating extensive research and lived experience into a single point of focus.
LiFang (1933–2020) was one of the few Taiwanese women artists to live and work in Europe over an extended period. She graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University and studied under Li Shiqiao. In 1956, she co-founded the Fifth Moon Group with Liu Kuo-sung, Guo Dongrong, and Guo Yulun, becoming a pivotal figure in the development of postwar avant-garde art in Taiwan. In 2023, her work was included in the Whitechapel Gallery’s spring exhibition Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940–70 in London, shown alongside women artists from around the world. This marked a renewed international recognition of her practice and reaffirmed her position within postwar art history.