Solo Exhibition
To be endorsed, or not to be endorsed? — The Inner Field of Legitimacy in Contemporary Art
2025 -Loy Luo Space - New York
New York, November 7, 2025 — Loy Luo Space (101 Lafayette Street, New York) presents “Backing and Nothingness? — The Inner Field of Legitimacy in Contemporary Art,” a new solo exhibition by artist Loy Luo. Curated by the artist herself, the exhibition explores the invisible system of “endorsement” in contemporary art — the ways institutions, curators, and media shape the visibility and validation of the artist. In this exhibition, Luo reverses the logic of external authorization. Instead of seeking institutional backing, she turns toward what she calls an inner endorsement — a self-generated structure of legitimacy rooted in the artist’s own spiritual and cultural continuity. “I am not rejecting the system,” Luo writes, “but reexamining the reciprocal relationship between structure and existence. The ‘nothingness’ in this title carries a question mark — a proposal that an exhibition seemingly without endorsement might reveal another form of validation, arising from the artist’s own consciousness, her dialogue with the environment, and her reconstruction of cultural memory.” The exhibition features a calligraphy wall, paintings wrapped in translucent rice paper, and a central five-part ceramic work titled “Long River, Sunshine, Circle.” A long white fabric flows through the space like a river, connecting the works in a poetic gesture that embodies the cyclical movement between structure and emptiness, visibility and silence. Exhibition Details Title: Backing and Nothingness? — The Inner Field of Legitimacy in Contemporary Art Artist / Curator: Loy Luo Dates: November 7 – December 15, 2025 Venue: Loy Luo Space, 101 Lafayette Street, New York Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00 – 6:00 PM Website: www.loyluospace.com/theory Artist’s Statement “I have been endorsed by galleries, museums, and curators, yet I now choose to self-curate not out of rebellion, but from a desire to build a new form of internal legitimacy — one that grows from history, culture, and consciousness itself.” Press Contact Loy Luo Space 📧 info@loyluospace.com 🌐 www.loyluospace.com
Painting Installation
Solo Exhibition
Anitya--Windows Through Windows
2025 -Loy Luo Space - New York
Standing before Loy Luo’s latest works feels like standing before a silent window. Four celadon-hued panels join to form a complete frame, with light gliding slowly across their surfaces, and textures like hidden currents beneath still water. This ‘window’ opens not only onto a view, but also onto the other side of life— a threshold and a barrier, a measure of time itself. Between the shifting outside and the contemplative inside, the viewer senses a state of being enclosed, projected, and reflected all at once. Windows Through Windows confronts the viewer not only with a scene, but with the self. Eyes are often metaphorically referred to as the windows to the soul, but when life itself becomes the entity confined behind wooden panes, how does our perception shift? This is what Luo invites the audience to experience— that in the subtle disconnection from being, one might touch the essence of existence. Each piece imbued with a philosophical depth, she continually challenges the boundaries of reality. This exhibition builds on Luo’s earlier Window Variations series, where the window became a shifting metaphor for observation, separation, and the passage of time. In those works, windows framed more than a view— they framed states of mind, histories, and emotional landscapes. For Anitya: Windows Through Windows, Luo reconfigures this language, allowing the window to embody impermanence itself: a threshold in which light, material, and perception are never the same twice. Anitya, a Sanskrit term, is a fundamental concept in Buddhism, alongside dukkha and anatta, which collectively form a complete depiction of reality. Anitya stands in contrast to nitya, symbolizing transience— that which is impermanent. Somewhat similarly, anatta opposes the notion of the unvarying soul, but rather that the nature of the self is in a constant state of flux throughout life. Lastly, dukkha encapsulates the suffering tied to existence, manifesting in various forms. In Loy Luo’s works, this idea becomes visual— the dancing light outside the window, the evolving emotions within, and even the stillness of the frame itself are fragments in constant transformation. The wood is perpetually aging, the acrylic fading; the space around it, whether that may be a blank wall, the dappled light and shadow, even the changing temperature -changing the personality of the artwork with each movement. Before these works, each viewer finds themself immersed in the window’s impermanence— facing the world and watching time pass from within. Every experience will shine differently through each pair of eyes, as every single moment lead up to this one. Perhaps the serene landscapes paint a memory in one eye, a dream in the other, a mirror in another. The time and space around us hold the power to either limit what we see or enhance our insight… The frame becomes the space in which change is both inevitable and beautiful. Anitya is so essential to aiding the understanding of existence as it cements the philosophy of change. The faces we meet, the places we see, all affect our perception of the next face and place we are to come across. The Chinese word biān (边) was is vital to Luo’s collection as the ambiguity of the definition offers layered readings, including both edge and change, along with the image of sitting beside a window. When considering each definition as one whole rather than scattered shards, Luo’s collection of Windows Through Windows really begins to flower. Drawing on Laoozi’s philosophy, she reflects on the frame not as a rigid outline but as the threshold between the invisible spirit and visible world. (Lulu Dakinah)
Installation View
Solo Exhibition
Before and After the Word
One of the most well-known statements in Gombrich’s The Story of Art is: “There is no such thing as Art with a capital A, there are only artists.” In the process of creating—when her focus naturally settles into the gestures of marking and writing—Loy Luo has finally discovered a way to respond to Gombrich’s proposition about art and the artist. In fact, the very moment humans first engaged in artistic creation, Art with a capital A was born. The artist, by contrast, is a product of art history. While working on a new series titled Before the Word, Luo realized that when an artist creates—no matter how practical or decorative the resulting object may seem to others—the seemingly unconscious act of writing or marking becomes a channel between the metaphysical and the physical. Even a so-called “primitive” person, as judged by today’s standards, might have secretly carved marks into a cave wall while asking, perhaps unknowingly: “Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?” Luo’s mark-making series may appear to continue the innate East Asian cultural impulse toward writing, but her intent reaches far deeper—to a more primal state, to the beginning of being itself. Just as philosophers must reset to a zero-point in order to reconstruct their systems of thought, Luo believes that artists, too, must “zero out” in order to reconnect with their truest inner sensations and build their own languages. This process of constructing a personal language system has been long and layered: From early practices of hand-copying books to deepen memory and attention; To repeatedly transcribing Buddhist sutras as a self-imposed ritual to quiet anxiety and seek calm; To copying The Book of Songs and The Songs of Chu while living abroad to ease homesickness; To layering and juxtaposing Eastern and Western texts; To inventing pseudo-musical notations, smudging, scratching, and erasing to obscure readability and awaken the visual energy of text; To collage, installation, and the creation of blurred, ambiguous characters—All of these are experiments in a continual search for a new visual and linguistic order. Her most significant breakthrough is this: From the word, to before the word. It marks not only a return to a pre-linguistic state but also a leap—from culture to philosophy.
Installation View
Solo Exhibition
Installation View
Loy Luo’s latest solo exhibition "Both Sides Now" takes its name from the classic Joni Mitchell song, and reflects a sentiment that perfectly encapsulates both the visual structure of the show and the essence of the artist’s creative philosophy. Luo explores the inherent duality within human nature- one side rough, the other delicate; one side sorrowful, the other hopeful; one side kind, the other indifferent. Just like life itself, existence is a balance of contradictions: light and shadow, generosity and ruthlessness. For this exhibition, Luo presents large-scale multimedia works that transform the gallery into an immersive, enclosed space. A deliberate “peep window” design invites viewers to look inward from the outside and outward from within, symbolizing the interplay between personal introspection and external perception. "Both Sides Now" is also part of Luo’s ongoing "Form Theater" series at Loy Luo Space- a project dedicated to pushing the boundaries of materiality and form. The exhibition highlights Luo’s deep fascination with texture—an element the artist sees as a tangible manifestation of life’s passage. As Luo explains, while the meaning of life remains abstract and elusive, the textures shaped by time and matter are concrete, real, and deeply moving. (John Mazlish & Leslie Herman) Exhibition Details: Loy Luo Space, 101 Lafayette St., NYC, 10013 March 7 – April 3, 2025 Opening Night: March 7, 5–8 PM
Solo Exhibition
CaveMan
CaveMan: An Exhibition of Loy Luo's Works
Wang Chunchen The Cave is an ancient metaphor. The allegory of the cave became a basic way for philosophers to debate the world and perception and reality of it. For Loy Luo, it became a way to imagine herself, her art, her worlds. To imagine anew. Loy Luo arrived in New York in early January 2020 and planned to stay for three months. While a brief visit turned into four years of experiences. In these years, she saw a lot and thought a lot. She struggled for survival in realms she did not know. It was not easy. She tried to make sense of things in her art. She painted portraits with masks for friends she made and for strangers she came across. Then came several especially timely solo exhibitions in which Loy Luo painted “The me in others “and “The homeless” in New York. It attracted the attention of dozens in local artistic circles and in the art media. After moving from place to place, she built her New York studio, from which she could engage the art world and that of the city itself. All the while, her vision broadened and sharpened as she painted, wrote, and enacted performance works. In a cleft, we are caveman. When we go out, we become different caveman; we’re not the same but also not entirely different. When Loy Luo showed her work in New York, viewers there encountered what was for many of them an unusual vision of time and space. Two kinds of time and space can be found in works she brought back to Beijing and those she left in Li Qiao's studio. Look at them carefully: they may appear the same in spirit, but the energy in them is not. The works she left has strong direct impact; they are sometimes dense. The works created in New York are saturated by other atmospheres, of tenacity and firmness, of speculation about cave and non-cave. Today's artistic creation is often in that kind of a situation in one way or another. Here is here, there is there, and they don’t seem to meet. For the cave is in a mountain; it is inseparable from the whole mountain, with its many peaks and heights, allowing boundless vistas. Yet, after the years of observing, exploring, communicating, thinking, and acting, Loy Luo is not the same one who was four years ago. This exhibition looks back and to the distance, Loy Luo’s vision rushes to the sea and to a new world. Artist Statement "The Cave" is inspired by Plato's philosophical metaphors, it's from the beginning of world art history, and also from my own summary of the creative state and life experience. The reason why we cannot get out of the cave is because human nature is naturally prone to sinking into the power of darkness. The reason why artists are soberly aware of our own cave state is because we are always wandering inside and outside the boundaries of sinking and escaping.
Installation View
Solo Exhibition
Installation View
Secrets
In the current solo exhibition at the Mazlish Gallery, the soulful paintings of Loy Luo evoke timeless songs with unknown origins and infinite possibilities. The abstract artworks have the depth and strength of stone combined with the lightness of air and space. Luo not only encourages her audience to look but also to listen and move in place as they view her art. The musicality comes from Luo’s background as a musician and her notations that are painted on the canvas recount ancient songs of friendship and love. To fully experience the evershifting color, depth and space, the viewer is compelled to move from left to right and from up to down in order to grasp the dimensions described by the powerful presence of each artwork. All of Luo’s artworks present a vast, borderless space. In this floating, gravity-free world, Luo paints intangibles with such conviction that these abstractions are made manifest. With precise, deliberate brush marks, Luo creates an alchemic surface that changes according to the ambient light. In Half Diamond Sutra, the mineral green of the ground unites the suspended marks and objects as well as the calligraphic notations scratched into the patina. In Abstract Theater A8, the sense of the self suspended in the experience of gazing towards a rosy light peppered with floating forms that are at once bird-like yet solid. The vertigo created by this tilting space is caused by a depth of field that seems to accelerate with the passage of time. In the Rune series, the sensation of different spaces is more direct: in Rune 2, the painting evokes the sunlight through trees as one gazes upwards and in the painting Rune 3, the atmospheric blue places the viewer adrift in a celestial orb. This cartographic quality continues through to the Heart Sutra series. In these paintings, there are luminous pigments lurking beneath a calming overlay of earth colors. It is in the incising of the paint through this glowing patina that Loy Luo reveals the depth of the painting’s journey. Calligraphic symbols rain down the canvases in a constant torrent of memories evoking stories, songs and poems. Some artworks, such as Heart Sutra I, go so far as to play with the light. As the viewer moves in front of the painting, the colors shift magically from black to gold and back to black. This optical illusion reveals and obscures its own meaning, cajoling the viewer to come close and then to step away in a continual “back and forth” sensation. It is only by remaining engaged with the artworks over time does the understanding of the inscribed words, the space and the shifting colors become clear. The most recent series of artworks, Guqin, refer to the horizontal slide guitar native to China with which Loy Luo performs her music. In Guqin I and II, Luo writes the notes of a traditional folk song on a white field. Sometimes the notes are cut off abruptly by a jagged sanguine border like an ancient wound that refuses to heal. In both paintings, the texts seem to have been incised into white marble that is at once solid yet poised to vaporize like a cloud- just as the memory of music disappears just after it is performed. The uniting force behind all of Loy Luo’s artworks is the immense strength and space she describes with her large and smaller abstract paintings. The alternating erasure and endurance of her mark making, the piercing luminosity of her colors and the power of implied telluric currents are all infused by Luo with a lightness of being. The inscriptions are manifested thoughts that rain down in the mind of the viewer like a half-forgotten melody as the artist presents an ancient tale, patinated with age and its accompanying palimpsests, conveying timeless instructions on how to love and live. - Jen Dragon
Solo Exhibition
Mana Contemporary(M):Who are you and what do you do? Loy Luo(L):Hello everyone, my name is Loy Luo. I am a full-time artist from Beijing, China. My artistic medium is multiple. I paint, sculpt and do calligraphy, and also I make videos. The art I produce so far is based on a project that is a conceptual work of art. M：How‘s being in a creative collaborative space like Mana benefited your work or relationships? L：I came to the United States two years ago. I am so excited to have a studio at Mana Contemporary now. After coming to Mana, I felt that my creative state was fully opened. It gives me a good communication atmosphere with the artistic community from every corner of the world. The interaction of artists creates an exciting environment to work. This kind of communication is very important for artists, because it brings some up-to-date information and stimulates some ideas M：Why are you participating in the open house? L：I'm very excited to participate in the Open House.This year, I've traveled a lot and did many different artworks, but all these works are focused on one job: the window project. In fact, the window project is a series of variations of windows, which consists of many parts. The theme of windows spawns many sub-themes. At September, the International association of female Artists in USA did my online exchange show which titled Bleak and Prosperous.I used works of different times and situations to illustrate the relationship between the variability of time and space Windows and the richness of artistic creation and appreciation.This deceptively simple fact calls into question the active and forced idolization of today's successful commercial artists. And I also try to answer the possible of unity between the diversity and”this artist“ Mana’s ongoing Open House gives me the opportunity to show sub-projects or small systems of the window projects with different faces each time, so I'm excited. For example, in Open House in October, I showed a show named Window Book. In This exhibition, I mainly want to discuss the phenomenological relationship between meaning and image. That is to say, I take calligraphy as the hidden meaning behind the window of phenomena, and then reverse the "meaning" behind the window and juxtapose it with the image representing phenomena on the same plane. I think this is a response to the zero-depth trend of meaning in our time. At the upcoming Open House in November, I will present " Window BIAN". BIAN, pronounced in Chinese, has many meanings. I can translate it as sitting by a window, or window frame. BIAN or edge, means frame, if there's a frame, there's a window. Laozi's philosophy holds that the window is nothingness, and he emphasizes the use of "nothingness". I think even "nothing" has a certain material basis, such as frames. If art is the window of the invisible spirit, then the frame is the necessary material to help the invisible spirit present. It can be said that the frame is the more implicit, explicit, and metaphorical part between the invisible and the visible world. The most obvious intention that these different boxes hope to show is that even if the scenery outside the window is similar or the same, due to the development of history, the frame of the material world has changed, people's vision has changed, causing your personal experience and knowledge of the inner window to change as well. In the end, the world outside our window is always different. To convey this idea, I designed some different frames from traditional, rigid frames. While they may no longer look like frames, they will always consist of a few edges. In fact, on a deeper level, I am using a framework of deconstruction and reorganization to suggest how different visual experiences are formed. M: What are your inspirations? L：This theme was originally inspired by my experience living in upstate New York last winter. During the long snowydays, I spent a lot of time looking out the window at the bleak scenery, which gave me the idea to do a concept art pieceabout Windows. This Window sensitivity may also be due to the fact that I spent half a year working and living in awindowless semi-basement studio in Brooklyn, completing a work of homeless action art. However, I am able to deepenand change this theme constantly, on the one hand, because the changing situation of sojourners makes me deeply feel thedifferent feelings and understandings of different time and space; On the other hand, it comes from thinking about thevery subtle cultural clash and fusion that happened to me. This imperceptible genetic influence on my artistic expressionis like an invisible window in my brain. Finally, to be honest, I was also inspired by the environment of Mana. There are artists from all over the world. In myopinion, every artist is a window. I hope to have the opportunity to contact more different Windows and finally show myown unique window to the world. Thank you very much. Video by Nathaniel Rosario (Mana Contemporary) The text has been partially adjusted by Loy Luo
Installation View
Solo Exhibition
Installation View
How long, and to what degree, must a being imprint itself upon the geometries of our lived architecture before imparting suggestions of a warm body? In the ten paintings that comprise Homeless, Loy Luo's solo exhibition with Undercurrent, the artist portrays a faded landscape that reveals an indeterminate existence within and between hegemonic structures. With an unquiet, almost compulsive painterly hand, Luo creates paintings whose medium seems to molder onto the panels, recording our complicity in the peripheralization of living beings. Disintegration comes to its visual crescendo where the delineation between body and locale seems to muddy and blur, having us witness the dissolution of human bodies. In pieces such as Entanglement, and The Troubadour, we see all supportive infrastructure fall away, leaving the figure in a constant flux of disintegration, the anonymity of the individual reflecting the formal breakdown of the environment. Stacked upon wooden blocks, Luo’s paintings refute their status as mere aesthetic depiction of a scene, instead becoming intrinsically linked with the gallery’s scaffolding and thus insisting upon our participation both within and around these stories of isolation. In these heavy cityscapes, Luo tenderly surfaces figures who have been overlooked and inserts them in corporeality we cannot help but face. Many things can be said about the city of New York but the most applicable here would be an allegiance to the unceasing restructuring of its buildings and the lives within them: as De Certeau describes it, a constant verticality in which those deemed unfit are swiftly discarded. As the city performs relentless alterations, its inhabitants strain to survive inside fragile micro-diasporas. Those who inhabit the chasm between public and private space embody an indeterminacy that, at best, defies co-option and, at worst, is testament to political failure. Luo’s metaphysical preoccupations with human existence and her quiet, agile handling of the medium elicit a needling dis-ease in her viewer. Faceless and solitary, the boundaries between person and infrastructure becomes indissoluble, causing the figure to recede into the grid of the city. We know these solitary figures from our daily movements around the city and recognize our disengagement from them. As the artist centralizes faceless histories in her impersonal cityscapes; we grapple with a choice: do we intervene in the inevitable disintegration of these figures into their encroaching backgrounds or simply watch from afar? Luo's figures, often in stasis, stand outside of both the demands and rewards of conditioned human behavior, pushing us to question our accession to this system. Adriana Furlong
Solo Exhibition
The Other I (The Me in Others)
It was in the midst of New York’s Covid-19 pandemic this past April 20th, 2020 at exactly 10:50PM when, guided by my confinement routine, I opened my Facebook Messenger and to my surprise—a chance encounter of sorts, astonished—I saw my own vibrant drawn portrait executed by Loy Luo. It may well be the first time since childhood, that someone has created my portrait outside the typical family snap shot photo. I gave thumbs up and responded, “Wow-Wearing a mask!” and, “Thank you!”. Oddly enough, days later and upon closer examination I found my portrait by Luo not to be a run of the mill ‘it looks like you’ standard portrait any artist can render. This was not due to any lack of skill whatsoever, but rather a synthesis of my inner self captured in an eloquent vibrant image of me seen from the outside in. The artist had in mind a quest to find her inner self in the portraying of the other. In the case of this exhibition; 100 New Yorkers living under the pandemic. Understood as a celebration of resilience, a trait New Yorkers have earned after enduring other milestone moments like 9/11, it may be notable to point out that in seeing my inner self surreptitiously described by my portrait, I also noticed her presence in me thus perfectly enshrining the exhibition’s title “The Other I – The Me in the Other.” Luo arrived in New York on January 9, 2020, as WhiteBox was installing a momentous exhibition by Wuhan based artist Ke Ming. Ke Ming was kept from traveling to NYC due to the early Coronavirus explosion his city experienced rendering the entire eleven million city souls fully confined. The opening of the exhibition took place on February 8th with the artist in absentia. At that point in time, neither Luo nor anyone at WhiteBox imagined New York would end up in exactly the same predicament. Everything in New York City was new to her. On February 23rd, Luo took a photograph of “The Ride NYC”, a long run sightseeing entertainment bus whose concept is the street as theatre. The audiences were innocently enjoying viewing the theatre taking place on the street. She made a drawing out of that photograph. In the drawing, we can hear the sound of a clock ticking before the virus or disaster arrives to the city. At Times Square, she witnessed some artists were drawing portraits outside the studio. It was the day after her witnessing of The Ride bus, on February 24th, that Luo started to create a portrait. Eager to survive mentally and physically in this largest city in the world under the sign of the snaking danger of the virus she then began to search for all kinds of people on the street to draw portraits; white, black, brown, yellow, red, old, young, mother, child, man, woman, and all LGTBQ. She has been drawing not only human beings. During the stay at home order many people become lonely, and adopted dogs as companions, creatures the artist would also portray. Luo says that her ‘portrait performances’ under the pandemic have made people happy. She also says making portraits have made her feel good. I see the artist as in conversation with a person while making his or her portrait. It is a way of being together, a way of not being scared or lonely. When a person, including me, receives a portrait, one feels cared for by her. Indeed, making portraits is contributing to the healing process for both herself and the other who receives the drawing. Luo’s performance reminds me of Naoto Nakagawa who is a Japanese master painter based in New York since the 1960s. He flew to the northeast region of Japan after a huge earthquake followed by a Tsunami took almost 16,000 lives in 2011. He visited anonymous people there to create a thousand portraits. He made the last portrait of a 4 year-old boy in a nursery. I remember him telling me that, “Japan is the country I am from. I wanted to do something for my country.” It is his belief that an artwork without love is valueless. With this I totally agree. The pandemic seems to affirm the theory of French social philosopher Jacques Attali that thinking about the other and their benefit will benefit ourselves at the same time. Both Luo and Nakagawa instinctively embody Attali’s theory. Making such art projects happen fulfills both themselves and others around them. Luo came to New York to find her identity and ended up inside the hot spot of a pandemic. She has been successful in finding herself through touching a hundred other souls. (Kyoko Sato)
Solo Exhibition
Installation View
Who is the "Me"?
If the world were about to end—if everything were on the brink of destruction—would what we are doing still matter? In January 2020, having just experienced the grief of bereavement, Loy Luo withdrew from the exhausting rhythm of heavy work and life, arriving in New York in search of spiritual relief and artistic nourishment. For more than a decade in Beijing, Luo had devoted herself to the creation and study of abstract art. As critic Jia Fangzhou noted, “Her works are grounded in two inner qualities: the irresistible philosophical reflection shaped by her intellectual structure, and a poetic sensibility quick to respond.” Yet in New York—in a city ravaged by the pandemic—Luo could not, as she once did in China, remain absorbed in “matters of the heavens.” Instead, she found herself drawn to the faces of people from around the world, each bearing the full spectrum of human emotions. In the panic of what felt like an apocalypse, these faces became a fertile ground for exploring the essence of human nature. The focus here is not merely on how she sought to present the “synthesis” of each individual’s inner being, but rather on the artist’s act itself: in the midst of a global pandemic, through depicting countless “others,” she searched for a renewed recognition of her own “self.” Living in the city most severely struck by the virus, the shift in ways of life and work—and the reexamination of the individual self—became the foundation driving this project forward. What began as a journey of exploration was abruptly transformed into the challenge of surviving alongside New Yorkers during the pandemic, touching upon both the collective and individual responses to crisis and sparking a reconsideration of the individual’s social identity. Luo observed and recorded this process firsthand. If thought were only about survival, there would have been no “Renaissance” after the Black Death of the Middle Ages. Reflection has always distinguished humans from other species, propelling our steps forward. During the pandemic, such reflection may take on an even deeper meaning. As Heidegger once said: “Only when one draws infinitely close to death can one profoundly experience the meaning of life.” The pandemic not only highlighted our existence as a community of life, but also pushed each individual toward a more intimate evaluation of what life itself means. Marx reminds us: “Man is a particular individual, and it is precisely his particularity that makes him an individual, a real and single social being. At the same time, he is also the totality—the conceptual totality, the conscious existence of society. In reality, he exists both as a direct, lived enjoyment of social existence, and as the totality of the manifestations of human life.” From both a rational and emotional perspective, Luo’s “performance art” was her most immediate and precise philosophical response as an artist. Returning to the opening question—if the world were to vanish, would our emotions still carry the same importance? From Luo’s own words, they evolve “from a subtle, bitter meditation on personal destiny, to a meditation in which personal feeling merges with the vastness of the cosmos.” Thought evolves into action, action produces change, and change generates new meaning. From the one hundred portraits she painted in New York, we clearly see the masked faces of ordinary people. Yet what we observe is not only the “truth” of each sitter; we also glimpse the shared psychological patterns of a society under plague—a kind of “psychological epidemic” that emerges as the true mark of the time. It is precisely this collective pattern that makes visible the value of “reflection” and “transformation.” Exhibition Concept – Virtual Hall Who is “me”? Around this question, Luo designed a small-scale exhibition space. Each portrait was enlarged and suspended in mid-air, evoking the experience of gazing up at monumental portraits on Tiananmen Gate. Here, every face becomes solemn, reverent, and worthy of veneration—a commentary on the enlargement of “self” within society. Yet, as viewers walk through the space and finally turn back, the portraits have vanished. What remains is an empty room, and floating in the air: the words WHO IS THE “ME”—accompanied by the names of one hundred thousand victims of the pandemic in the United States. Through this reversal, Luo highlights the inescapable importance of the individual: an insistence on the irreplaceable weight of each human life. Individual and collective, emphasis and erasure, virtual and real—constantly switching between states of recognition. Rome, July 2020 – Wang Yongxu
Solo Exhibition
Overview Stillness is an important solo exhibition by Loy Luo in 2018, exploring the relationship between spiritual stillness and visual language. Here, stillness is not a mood of silence or peace, but a threshold of being — a reflective response to existential movement, mental entanglement, and the limits of language. This exhibition represents a significant culmination of Luo’s early abstract practice, affirming the philosophical depth and maturity of her visual language. Sound of Stillness By Rongjian Heidegger once said that the sound of stillness (die ruhe) was more volatile than all motion. Does that statement defy common sense? Dophilosophers deliberately challenge public opinion with their meditations? In fact, Laozi had said: “By keeping the inner world perfectly calm and uninfluenced, I can observe how the world repeats itself as things evolve.” That is an awakening of humanity. In the thunderous din of the world, it is no easy matter to remain calm and unperturbed. According to Heidegger, men’s journey from cradle to grave eventually turns into stillness, while the nature of language is also stillness, which is the ontology of life, with tragedy being its ultimate form. When examining Loy’s works, which look kind of familiar, I was at a loss for words, as if I had stumbled into a still and gloomy night. The artist was trying to depict the entanglement between life and death, drawing the audience to her inner thoughts, which are either joyous or blue. However, the stillness I felt had little to do with her emotions, state of mind or subconsciousness. What I felt was transient, something that got solidified instantly or, to put it in another way, electrified; and there was no going back, no digression possible. The momentary stillness may be the most authentic feeling of existence. Through the dialogue in the work, the artist and the viewers engage not in a dialogue but in monologues of their own. In the stillness, soul’s volatility freezes, the language becomes hollow and the thoughts evasive. Alone do I exist. Stillness reigns supreme but the sounds of bells linger. The ancients say that calmness leads to space anddistance but how far is far? Is the heart far enough? Looking up, we see the vast, expansive, dark and still universe, and my heart feels likewise. Putting aside the secular world and standing in front of Loy’s paintings, can you hear the sound of stillness?
Talk View
Solo Exhibition
Dancing
2016 - Funspace Gallery - Roma
2016-08-23 - 2016-08-30
Curator, Dancing Together – Reading Loy Luo’s Paintings Wen Wang Yongxu Contemporary Chinese artists are exploring new possibilities in various directions. Whether in presentation, modes of thinking, or means of expression, they all represent the outward extension of complex narrative structures. In an age when time-sensitive and fragmented theatrical art has become a mainstream feature, we are delighted to see artists like Loy Luo adhering to the essence of art, creating through the most direct means expressions of alienation, meditation, emotion, or inner monologue. In Loy Luo’s solo exhibition in Rome, three small-scale works from the Dancing Together series reveal her process of blending paint unevenly into the ground, repeatedly modifying and adjusting until balance is achieved. These captivating, passionate yet carefully controlled colors and textures are undeniably an elegant visual experience. Yet on closer inspection, one finds that these creations are more like the philosophical speculations of an artist devoted to contemplation, played out on canvas. This time, however, it is evident that she has begun to step out of her former state of struggle, suspension, and entanglement, entering instead a space of openness and calm—an ease of spirit available only to those with inner stability. On the canvas, Eastern and Western philosophical perspectives appear like black and white dancers in playful interplay. Of course, attentive viewers will still sense the lingering sensitivity in Luo’s painting, as if every brushstroke bears witness to her artistic growth and struggle. Compared with her earlier works, Luo’s new paintings, in her own words, “delve deeper and push further.” In color, she strives to compress hues into more subtle, restrained, and extreme shades of grey. Formally, she attempts a “more complex simplicity”—a reduction toward essentials that unites Eastern tradition with Western theoretical painting in search of spiritual resonance. As Professor Qin Pu of the Central Academy of Fine Arts observed, Luo’s work seeks to stimulate tactile sensitivity through extreme visual restraint. This aligns with Song Weiguang’s comments on her sculpture, where compressed spatiality paradoxically produces depth and power. Luo’s artistic pursuit also echoes my understanding of her as a person: always seeking freedom by relinquishing what others treasure, or perhaps fascinated by the extreme challenges posed by the brutal perfection of the dancer’s shoes. A week before this exhibition, Luo also engaged in artistic exchanges with friends in Berlin, and is planning further shows. Through studying and reflecting on contemporary German art, she has clarified and affirmed her own contemporary position: avoiding fashionable trends in theater and high-tech media art, she insists on art as life’s essence, as a soulmate for both creator and viewer. As her German collectors remarked, when they encounter her paintings they do not feel dragged away by the fragmentation of the times, but rather experience calmness, depth, and tranquility. Luo believes that contemporary art can be performative, fragmented, slightly sentimental, and outwardly critical—but it should also return to contemplation, to integrity of spirit, authenticity, and inward resonance. To participate in the contemporary mainstream with a different posture—even if only on a spiritual level—requires not only the wisdom and clarity of the artistic dancer, but also great strength of heart and will. In China’s contemporary art world, Loy Luo is a true loner. She does not flatter or ingratiate, but walks her own path with solitude, determination, even stubbornness. As a curator who has known her for many years, I am well aware of her arduous journey and admire her courage to explore. I hope, through my experience and connections in Italy, to act as a bridge for such a dedicated artist, facilitating her communication with Western culture and art. I sincerely wish her artistic journey will go ever further. In my view, Loy Luo possesses the ambition, temperament, and energy to become a truly great artist.
Works Exhibited
Solo Exhibition
Suspending
2015 -Ning Space -Beijing
Installation View
Pursuing the Answer of the Tao in the Suspended State By Ning Zhang Loy Luo is a sensitive female artist who likes to put her thinking cap on. She is in herself an entity of contradictions and we may feel her inner struggles, her leaps in thinking and her entanglements. Her personality shows multiple contrary sides, and she feels herself being torn, which is amply showed her artworks. She likes to use acrylic because it has water character, which she considers Chinese; and to use oil paint because of its oily character, which is seen as Western. At the same time, she blends the two together through force. She says, "My ideal is to build a bridge between the West and the East. I have to do this or else I will feel bad, as I very much like Chinese culture and am infatuated with Western culture. So in a way, I feel obliged. Luo is a person who likes questioning, whether they are directed towards other people or at herself. She has been studying and thinking about philosophy and exploring the inner spiritual world. Her artwork is a pursuit of the Tao, a process of enlightenment. This can be seen in her paintings, Untitled Memories series and Suspending series, and in her series of sculptures entitled Poem. In her works, feelings and thinking are one and the same, while senses and rationality are unified. When she paints, she looks for inspiration through using the paints and changing layers and layers, until she finds an ideal images. In reality, she feels suspended, probably because she fell into a hole by accident when she went swimming in her childhood. She could neither rise up to the surface nor sink to the bottom, and had to see yellow water bubbles flowing by. That near-death experience is the origin of her thinking behind the suspended state of life. Her Suspending series is an experssion of suspended state of her life experiences, through dreamlike hues and exploratory strokes. It is meaningful to embark on an artistic pursuit of the Tao. Inspired artworks are powerful . Our spiritual growth is a process of studying , thinking, questioning and seeking the truth. Sometimes, Our effort is aimless, uncertain and suspended. I think we will find the right answer if we continuously investigate the truth with our own wisdom independently and ceaselessly. I like the dedication Luo has shown to art, and admire her spiritual thinking and expressions conveyed through her paintings. I think that her art creation is a process of self-discovery and self-reflection, as weill as a process of seeking the truth and answering her inner questions.
Solo Selected
Before &After the Word
2025– Loy Luo Space, New York
2025 – Loy Luo Space, New York
CaveMan
2023– Meilun Art Museum, Beijing
Secrets
2023-Mazlish Gallery - New York
Windows
2021- Mana Contemporary -New Jersey
Homeless
2020 - Undercurrent Gallery - NewYork
The Other I (The Me in Others)
2020 -White Box Art Center-New York
Who is the "Me"?
2020 - Funspace Gallery - Roma
Stillness
2018 -Jindu Art Center - Beijing
Dancing
2016 - Funspace Gallery - Roma
Suspending
2015 -Ning Space -Beijing
2025
"The Art of Sho II" – Tenri Cultural Institute, New York
2024
"Body Theater" – Loy Luo Space, New York
"Color Theater" – Loy Luo Space, New York
Women’s History Month Exhibition – Mazlish Gallery, New York
"Qunyushan" – Nuovo Gallery, Beijing
2023
"Stepping into a World" – Max Gallery, New York
"In the Mood for Love" – VillageOneArt, New York
"Awakening" – L Private Gallery, New York
"Sojourner" – Sojourner Gallery, New York
2022
"Weathering" – L Private Gallery, New York
"Autumn Harmony" – American Chinese Museum, Philadelphia
"The Maverick Expo #13" – New York
2021
"Hongjiang International Forum and Digital Art Exhibition" – Guangxi
Satellite Art Fair – Miami
"A Perfect Day: Drugs and Art" – White Box, New York
2019
"Beijing Flash Biennale" – No. 9 Art Museum, Beijing
"Logical Lines of Painting" – Jinji Lake Art Museum, Suzhou
2018
Unicorn Beach Art Festival – Aranya
2016
"Poetry & Medium – Abstract Sculpture" – Beijing
"Drunk Art in the Micro Particle" – Beijing
2014–2011
Chengdu Art Fair
"Three Impressions" – West-East Gallery, Beijing
Chinese-French Exhibition – Fontenay, France
Asian Art Fair – Beijing
"Form: Up and Down" – BIFT, Beijing