Love turns up in unexpected places. From old rickshaws to abandoned playgrounds. In White Rabbit Gallery’s latest exhibition, artists show us that love can be a time, a place, or even a memory. Its trace can be found in our father’s wristwatch, our lover’s skin, our grandparent’s home, or a humble bowl of rice.
Explore four floors of striking works from modern Chinese artists that convey both universal and culturally-specific experiences of love and loss in inventive and beautiful ways. Artist Shi Yong immortalises the fevered poetry of his friend in a pool of red neon lights for 'A Bunch of Happy Fantasies'; Jin Shi transforms a bicycle rickshaw into an eclectic and dazzling karaoke bar for ‘Small Business - Karaoke’; Gao Rong has hand-embroidered a life-sized tribute to her grandparents’ humble dwelling in exquisite detail for ‘The Static Eternity’, and Jiang Zhi’s ‘Love Letters’ is a series of breathtaking photographs of flaming orchids captured a moment before complete incineration, a tribute to his wife who was taken from him too soon.
For more patient gallery perusers, there are also multiple video works to take in, including Sin Wai Kin’s (單慧乾) playful take on a boyband that deconstructs racial and gender binaries, merging the archetypes from traditional Cantonese and Peking Opera with masculine drag characters.
This is one for all the hopeless romantics out there. And, as always, a trip to White Rabbit isn’t complete without pots of freshly brewed tea and steaming dumplings in the café downstairs.
Curated by David Williams, I Loved You is free to enter and runs until November 21, 2022. The gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday from 10am-5pm.
