Beijing | Bingyi: Talisman and Lightning Paintings

In this series, Bingyi utilizes ink as "dark light" to illuminate the transient physical processes that allow order to arise from primordial chaos. Rooted in the Zhuangzi's description of lightning as Celestial Rifting 列缺 and Heavenly Smile 天笑, Bingyi's lightning becomes the cosmological manifestation of electrifying powers. It captures the spark of life that brings awakening to human consciousness. Visually, these images resemble light, mountains, gardens and lakes, as well as complex internal topographies — capillary vessels in flesh or kaleidoscopic close-ups of organic life — rendered with a fiery, kinetic acceleration that maps the sheer speed and momentum of universal energy.

The Talismans (符箓系列): Spiritual Anchors and Systematic Language

In direct philosophical counterpoint, the Talisman series acts as the symbol for the cosmic energy. Characterized by large, bold, and sweeping gestures, the Talismans resemble monumental symbols transfigured into abstract monoliths. The talismans are NOT calligraphy, not painting, not performance, but also manage to be all of the above. It puts a new form of character writing or calligraphy at the center of contemporary art practice as if the artist is physically giving birth to these grand and mysterious creatures. Created on-site at Longhu Mountain — the historic cradle of Daoist spiritual lineage — these works manifest the "Magical Talisman" as energetic traces of time, place, and fate. Applied onto rice paper, the ink expands with a granular quality, mimicking an alien cellular proliferation. They provide the structural framework and the corporeal vessel that grounds the volatile flash of the Lightning series into one stroke of power between heaven and earth.

The Golden Realm (金色界系列): Light, Cosmos and the Subtle Realm

This exhibition marks the premiere of The Golden Realm. In Bingyi's oeuvre, the "gold" she employs is light, representing the cosmos; ink represents all things. The Golden Realm brings a grand cosmic narrative down into a tender expression of the "subtle and profound," in the Song shanshui tradition. In this show, the motif of "the mountain and valley in the moonlight" appears for the very first time, as does her use of gold and ink to manifest the poetic imagery of "My loves are three: the sun, the moon, and you." Bingyi invokes this series to echo Oscar Wilde's famous aphorism, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Through the shifting interplay of gold and ink under changing light, the painting guides the viewer to lift their gaze from a bleak reality and behold the brilliant starry sky that belongs solely to the soul.

Curatorial Conception: The Palindromic Forcefield

Under the title "符象天开" (Talisman and Lightning Paintings), the exhibition mirrors the ancient concept of Formation of Yin and Yang — referring to the core alignment of the cosmos and acting like a visual palindromic poem. The spatial configuration functions as an active energetic "formation" (阵). As viewers navigate the gallery, the blocky, monolithic Talismans structure the space, while the electric currents of the Lightning Paintings flow between them, transforming the physical hall into a living cosmic 道场 (Daoist arena). Within this formation, The Golden Realm introduces the shifting interplay of gold and ink under changing light, bringing the cosmic narrative into a tender, intimate realm. By dismantling anthropocentric representation, Bingyi's brushwork serves as a primal key to activate fields of consciousness, dissolve the boundary between matter and spirit, and forcefully awaken the human mind.