(Address: No. 19, Bai'etan S. Rd., Liwan District, Guangzhou）

Opening Time: 3:00 PM, May 15, 2026

Organizer: Guangdong Museum of Art

Producer: Wang Shaoqiang (CHN)

Academic Host: Li Bangyao (CHN)

Curators: Li Xiaoman (CHN)，Simone Schuiten (BEL)

Supporter: ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

 

In today’s rapidly accelerating visual culture, images are increasingly produced and consumed in immediate and virtualized ways. Within this context, painting—grounded in the body, material, and time—has once again become an important means through which artists respond to perception and spiritual experience. Traces of the Inner Self and the Nature of Things – A Dialogue between Chinese and European Abstract Brushstrokes returns attention to the brushstroke as one of the most fundamental acts of painting, exploring how abstraction continues to generate new forms of perception across different cultural traditions.

 

The exhibition focuses on artists’ ongoing explorations of brushwork and materiality. Chinese artists extend traditions of brush-and-ink practice, emphasizing calligraphic expression, rhythm, and embodied perception through the accumulation of material and time. European artists, meanwhile, rethink the boundaries of painting through bodily gesture, material experimentation, and traces of process. Although shaped by different cultural contexts, the participating artists all seek to move beyond representational image-making and establish deeper relationships between human beings, materials, body, and space.

 

Bringing together seven artists from four countries and regions, the exhibition encompasses diverse painting-related media practices. Rather than proposing simple stylistic correspondences, the exhibition aims to reconsider the significance of abstraction today through cross-cultural dialogue and juxtaposition.

 

As a major public art institution in southern China, the Guangdong Museum of Art has long promoted international exchange and cross-cultural research. Through the dialogue between Chinese and European artists, this exhibition further reflects on how contemporary art may generate new forms of understanding and perception across different cultural traditions.

 

 

Ulla Hase(DEU)

Ballpoint pen, paper, framed with gallery-grade glass

33.8cm × 23.2cm × 3

2019

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

Niki Kokkinos(GRC)

Acrylic, watercolor, graphite, kite paper

145cm×80cm

2025

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

Peng Meiling(BEL)

Acrylic, linen

97cm×145cm

2025

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

Zhu Tianmeng(BEL)

Chinese ink on Xuan paper

136cm×59cm

2026

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

Philip Wittmann(BEL)

Acrylic on paper

148cm×126cm

2026

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

Ke Jipeng(CHN)

Acrylic on canvas

150cm×200cm

2025

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery

 

Hu Qinwu(CHN)

Acrylic on canvas

105cm×140cm

2023

Courtesy of the Artist and ODRADEK Résidence Gallery