Dalniy, Dalniy.

I can no longer remember when I first learned this former name of my hometown. The meaning of the word—“the distant place”—carried with it a faint sense of mystery.

An embroidered textile designed by my mother in the 1960s became the starting point of this exhibition, reconnecting me with my childhood curiosity toward the textiles that filled our domestic environment. How should I tell a story I myself only partially understand? What new meanings might emerge from these fragments of everyday life?

Upon entering the exhibition space, no elaborate explanation is needed. Simply hearing the titles or seeing the materials is enough to grasp what they point to: Zhongshan Square, Shanghai. I look at calendar fragments printed on Japanese fabric, at harbors and train stations. The glassy eyes of a toy fawn gaze back at you—strikingly similar to the export kitten doll at home whose whiskers I once pulled out. A flesh-pink silk scarf I used to take out and play with now hangs quietly in front of me.

The sound of waves rises and falls. I am struck by how heavy, intimate material has been handled with such softness and lightness. Symbols gradually dissolve into abstraction, as if another facet of memory has been gently drawn open.

Carrying a multitude of impressions, I arranged an interview with Artist Luan. Over the course of two hours, she revisited her family history and artistic trajectory, and many of my questions found their answers. The artist’s control over exhibition details and materials resulted in decisive and effective choices within a limited time frame. What permeates the gallery is not only romance, but also reflection born of looking back.

The Summer in Dalniy series meticulously recreates design motifs inherited from socialist aesthetics. Acrylic is painted directly onto canvas; mounds of earth are embedded with shards of glass. Hooks holding collars hand-sewn by the artist, and clips suspending silk panels in the square, all conscientiously fulfill their roles—each carrying a subtle undercurrent of pain. As painting withdraws into space, space itself retreats behind layers of translucent fabric. The movement of bodies activates overlapping fields.

The most striking part of my interview with Ms. Luan was her firm resistance to using historical narratives, personal memories, fashionable conceptual-art jargon, or a posture of self-pity as explanatory overlays to mask the “unspeakable” value intrinsic to visual art. Indeed, there are no wall texts in the exhibition. The works speak for themselves, inviting viewers to read—or to ask: Am I interpreting this accurately?

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A Conversation between Na Rongkun and Luan Xueyan

(Na / Luan)

Na: Could you speak about the origins of the exhibition? Why is it titled "Summer in Dalniy", and how did the project expand from a single embroidered textile into a complete exhibition? How did you balance history, personal memory, and present emotion to achieve a harmonious expression in the works?

Luan: The motivation behind Summer in Dalniy—which I see as a holistic work—began with an embroidery pattern designed by my mother during the Cultural Revolution, and with the sudden emergence of the word “Dalniy.” Two years ago, I revisited Dalian and returned to the neighborhood where I grew up—between Victory Bridge, Dalian Railway Station, and Zhongshan Square. I unexpectedly discovered that the Dalian Natural History Museum, where my mother often took me to sketch, had become a dilapidated structure. On Amap, it was labeled “Former Dalniy City Hall.” Before this, the word “Dalniy” had never existed in my life.

Distant memories and an even more distant time-space suddenly became linked, as if the trajectory of this city had always been in someone else’s hands. What the embroidery evoked was likewise an inexpressible trauma—a resonance between the individual and the land. Drawing upon the 1980s fascination with exoticism, the common formula of “place + ‘of’ + season/time,” and my bodily memory of frequently traversing Zhongshan Square—a circular plaza planned during the period of Russian occupation and connected by ten roads—these elements together formed the basic framework of the exhibition.

Memories of where you come from that permanently reside in the body; experiences and imaginings endlessly stirred; sweetness or pain that still lingers; and undercurrents mixed with present realities—at a certain moment, triggered by a catalyst, they naturally surge forth. As the creator, all I need to do is carefully gather them up and gently brush off the dust.

Na: The Summer in Dalniy series draws on graphic composition styles from the last century and recalls the mastheads of propaganda posters. Each of the three works seems to employ a different design strategy. Could you talk about the imagery and your approach to selecting source materials when working through stylistic imitation?

Luan: The title piece was designed to accompany the embroidery used for the exhibition poster, and it imitates the decorative typography of the Republican era. Modern Chinese “art typography” emerged during the late Qing and early Republican period, heavily influenced by Japan (even the term “pattern” was translated from the English “design” via Japanese). Soon, however, local designers—especially in Shanghai—began integrating Chinese calligraphy and seal-carving traditions, developing typographic styles with distinctive local characteristics. This title draws from that period. Written in a single brushstroke, it naturally carries the force of stone-and-seal carving.

In terms of color, I was searching for a pale blue that felt pure and unnamed—not navy, sky blue, or baby blue. It took many rounds of mixing to arrive there.

For those born in the 1970s and earlier, beyond hand-painted advertisements, shop signs, posters, and simple decorative graphics, there is also strong muscle memory associated with making blackboard newspapers, bulletin boards, and slogan writing. The Summer in Dalniy series uses gouache with removed binder—a standard pre-digital-era material for commercial design—to create advertising posters. I selected three design languages that I consider most representative of the 1970s and 1980s, the years of my upbringing.

Summer in Dalniy I imitates woodcut-style graphics often used in design: iconic architecture beneath clouds rendered in a single color, paired with decorative typography indicating place, sometimes enriched with pinyin as graphic form. These compositions functioned almost like today’s logos, directly decorating products across different categories and manufacturers. I chose Dalian Railway Station, built during the Japanese occupation and in operation for nearly a century. The color palette uses bright red and dark green—often applied independently at the time—along with related light green, forming a complementary contrast.

Summer in Dalniy II draws on traditional ornamental vignette designs①, using marine imagery associated with Dalian—revisited later in Dalniy Blue I. Such motifs, valued for their formal freedom, were widely used. While researching this period, I encountered many ingenious design solutions that revealed the thoughtfulness of designers at the time. To pay homage to this simplicity, I adopted similar methods, integrating wave and seagull curves into the typography: wave-shaped strokes, foam-like dots, and splash forms embedded in the character “Summer.” The palette uses a triadic scheme of analogous colors typical of the era. Blue, the most everyday color at the time, nonetheless took a long time to finalize. Harmonious blues are infinite, yet the one I sought was difficult to define.

Summer in Dalniy III imitates narrative poster design. Ships, symbols of modern industry and coastal defense, frequently appeared in visual culture of the time. Yuejin was a ten-thousand-ton vessel completed at the Dalian Shipyard during the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s. The character “跃” (leap) is written in a form no longer used today, reflecting successive script reforms after the founding of the PRC. The color scheme here feels less “old-fashioned,” because many early designs, when viewed today, appear surprisingly fashionable—such as low-saturation complementary contrasts. I wanted to see whether that sense of “fashion” could travel into the present.

Na: The exhibition palette—blues, flesh tones, muted greens—feels consistently light and desaturated. Were these choices influenced by 1970s–80s design aesthetics or by your background in traditional Chinese painting?

Luan: I didn’t consciously plan an overall color scheme; I worked primarily through intuition. Many of the desaturated colors result from the materials themselves—silk, gauze—and how they’re used: rubbing, masking, translucency. The color relationships are not strongly connected to Chinese painting experience. For a long time, I held a rather fierce rejection of my background in Chinese painting. Only after studying abroad did I begin to reflect upon and re-engage with it. That shift allowed me to recognize bodily connections, identification, even attachment. I realized that what I opposed was not Chinese painting itself, but the formulas and hierarchies parasitizing it.

Na: In the Shanghai series, small objects—hand warmers, ashtrays, figurines—appear intimate yet unified. Were you attempting to endow them with aura or symbolic meaning? Is painting, for you, a way of seeing reality? In contrast, the Small Landscapes produced through on-site sketching reduce information dramatically, leaving a sense of residue. Does this derive from your Chinese painting training?

Luan: Formalism, symbolism, or “aura” are not my goals. The Shanghai series is simply like objects washed ashore and carried away again by waves—random, beyond anyone’s control. As I mentioned earlier, I fully entrust myself to intuition in my work. This is a mechanism shaped by long-term training and practice—perhaps a structural habit of my generation’s knowledge system.

When painting or sewing, I must hold my breath entirely, concentrating every ounce of attention at my fingertips. My body enters an autonomous working state, and I truly feel merged with the task at hand. “Subtraction” emerged gradually through continuous sketching from my undergraduate years onward. With few visual references beyond worn imported art books, our focus was on comprehensive observational realism. Yet through sustained practice, moments of focusing, emphasizing, summarizing, or discarding occur autonomously, driven by an inner momentum to establish a personal spatiotemporal language.

Both watercolor Small Landscapes and meticulous Shanghai paintings aim to reduce subjects to the furthest limit of what I can perceive as their essence—an ever-approaching yet unreachable destination. My practice unfolds along two lines: textiles and sewing, an inward gaze rooted in touch; and painting centered on Small Landscapes, an outward gaze through the naked eye②—a way of seeing reality. Through repeated immersion in sites and embodied experience, painting re-presents the vibrations only accessible in living presence, beyond established rules.

Na: You have worked extensively with textiles in earlier exhibitions such as With Whom and Push-Up. Viewers often associate your materials with silk in Chinese painting or garments in classical figure paintings. How did your interest shift from painting to textile substrates? Space and light create layered visual fields that partially obstruct direct viewing. How important are spatial construction and light in your practice?

Luan: My 2011 solo exhibition With Whom consisted entirely of textile works, while Tuī Jiān Rǔ used inexpensive translucent construction netting. I’ve always felt an instinctive affinity with fiber materials—largely due to my mother. She would save fabric coupons to buy fabrics she loved, later collecting and carefully preserving textiles passed down from her mother. The Republican-era silk used in 1981 belonged to my grandmother—nearly a century old, yet remarkably pristine.

As a child, I often rummaged through wardrobes filled with these fabrics. In an era of material scarcity—and correspondingly limited color—textiles embodied beauty and goodness. Lustrous silks that snagged at the lightest touch could instantly transport you to another world entirely. I hadn’t considered the connection to classical figure painting garments before—that’s interesting.

This exhibition’s Shanghai series uses raw silk, left unmounted, unsigned, and unsealed, with its black selvage edges intact and placed directly into transparent frames. Here, silk is simply “a piece of fabric,” not “a Chinese painting.” My earliest exposure to silk came from watching my mother paint—her concentrated bodily state and fluid imagery profoundly influenced me. I understand this transmission as a deeply feminist mother–daughter lineage.

Space and light have always fascinated me; I even worked in interior and stage design for a time. Whether space or material, I remain devoted to restrained, whisper-like expressions.

Na: This exhibition is deeply tied to place and personal experience. Torso and The Dress explore imaginings of female desire. Emerging from your mother’s embroidery, does the exhibition also trace a line of “women and labor” within its emotional, historical, and mnemonic framework?

Luan: These two works—directly linked to concealed desire or taboo—indeed imagine a trailing gown beneath a false collar, flesh obscured behind gauze. The term torso③ itself occupies an illegitimate position in social discourse, yet persists. Weaving and textiles have been inseparable from “women and labor” since prehistoric times. My engagement with textile work is something I have personally experienced being disparaged by male artists.

Within the art history narrated by “high art,” the position of women—whether as objects of the gaze or as artists themselves—hardly needs elaboration. Increased visibility of women artists does not bring immediate structural change. Like the evil behind a mask, these forces intermittently accompany the entire course of human history.

Na: In your 2011 works Uncontainable and Twin Flowers, overlapping layers of fabric were already used as a metaphor for intimacy, seemingly freezing fragments of domestic scenes—such as hanging clothes—into place. In this exhibition, Entanglement layers elements of work uniforms onto that vocabulary. As you revisit the theme of love, has your understanding of “entanglement” changed compared with more than a decade ago?

Luan: Yes, very much so. Uncontainable was an expression of my parents’ unwavering love. That solo exhibition was entirely about friendships or romantic relationships among women of different generations; its title was With Whom. Such an uncompromisingly female-centered theme, combined with installations composed entirely of textiles, made it impossible for the work to secure further exhibition opportunities at the time. It was only fifteen years later that I finally had the chance to realize an exhibition fully on my own terms.

In this exhibition, Entanglement still speaks of my parents’ love, but it is now situated within the thread of a family history. Behind family history lies social history—it is a way of returning the individual to history.

Na: In his exhibition review, the artist Yanchong suggests that your recent work breaks away from conventional narratives, carrying a strong sense of emotional tension and rhythm. How do you calibrate this “degree” in your creative process? From your early explorations of formal language to Summer in Dalniy, where material specificity and thematic resonance are deeply intertwined, could you speak about the evolution of your artistic language?

Luan: I’m not sure whether I’ve made a breakthrough, but Yanchong’s long essay certainly “broke through” his own limits—laughs. The origin of my work always lies in deep feeling. Emotional relationships within one’s family of origin and experiences of childhood profoundly shape us, leaving tactile impressions that accompany us throughout life and can never be erased. When one reaches a certain point in life, when the road ahead begins to reveal a blurred outline of its end, one inevitably looks back at the path already traveled.

Coming from a student period marked by a scarcity of visual resources, I became accustomed early on to “crossing the river by feeling the stones beneath my feet.” My working method has always been singular: to say what I need to say as clearly as possible, by any means necessary. I therefore do not confine myself to acrylic on canvas, gouache, watercolor, or Chinese ink painting, nor do I adhere to categorical divisions between painting and installation. All of these, like female identity itself, are bound up with questions of equality and with the hierarchies that persist throughout art history.

What I understand as “degree” is a form of restraint: restraint in emotional outpouring, in linguistic articulation, in color, and in volume. This restraint should arise from profound emotional investment and from the compressed etymological weight behind the work. It also comes from a distaste for virtuosity for its own sake and a wariness toward conceptual ambition. Most importantly, it stems from a reverence for what cannot be articulated.

At the most unspeakable core of visual art, personal experience, interpretation, concepts, and history are all pressed behind the work. If viewers are interested, they will excavate meanings that belong uniquely to them. This, to me, is the “aura” of visual art—and it is also an extremely demanding position for an artist to hold.

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Notes

① Decorative Vignette (Tíhuā):
A decorative illustration or pattern used in books, newspapers, or school publications to embellish article titles or openings. Common forms include background motifs or small illustrations, often paired with closing vignettes. Historically hand-drawn or printed, these designs enhance visual appeal and must align with the content’s theme.

② “LOW-Eye” (artist’s term):
Defined by the artist herself. In contemporary Chinese internet slang, low denotes something crude, low-end, or lacking refinement—often associated with imitation or poor quality. In art-historical discourse, Low Art is positioned in contrast to High Art, a lineage that can be traced as far back as Plato.

③ On the term “Torso” (Dòngtǐ):
None of the major Chinese dictionaries define dòngtǐ as “female nudity.” Ciyuan defines it as the carcass of slaughtered livestock, while Modern Chinese Dictionary lists “human body” as a secondary meaning, with the primary definition referring to an animal body after removal of the head, limbs, tail, and organs. From an etymological standpoint, using this term to describe the female body carries implicit derogatory connotations and bears no direct semantic relation to female nudity.