Poesies
29 August—20 September
Poesies is a new series of atmospheric paintings and ceramics which capture the essence of the human condition and the impact of the modern world on individuals. Despite their often stark realism, Chai’s masterful work have a an eerie sense of the surreal, inviting viewers to contemplate the themes of alienation and our longing for connection and meaning.
In his new body of work Poesies, Chai creates a body of work where myth, memory, and the human condition intertwine in a dreamlike yet grounded visual language. The exhibition’s title draws on Titian’s celebrated Poesie paintings for King Philip II of Spain, themselves inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Like Titian, Chai reaches into the well of classical storytelling—but where the Renaissance master looked to the sunlit, Bacchanalian spirit of Greco-Roman epics, Chai often paints by moonlight.
In Poesies, reality is never denied, but it is softened, refracted, and transformed through a painterly lens attuned to metamorphosis. Chai’s moonlit visions invite us into a space where poetry and hardship coexist, where myth and memory sit side by side, and where the everyday is given wings—fragile, perhaps, but luminous enough to carry us a little closer to beauty.
Featured artwork: Vagrants 流氓
