Art Basel Hong Kong
Group show
Katarina CASERMAN, Kristy M. CHAN, LAU Hiu Tung, Julia LONG, Cheri SMITH, Clare THACKWAY, Hanqiu XIAO, Yuan YUAN, Natalia ZAGORSKA-THOMAS, Meng ZHANG, Tant Yunshu ZHONG, Dan ZHU
Tabula Rasa Gallery
25 – 29 March 2026
Group show
Katarina CASERMAN, Kristy M. CHAN, LAU Hiu Tung, Julia LONG, Cheri SMITH, Clare THACKWAY, Hanqiu XIAO, Yuan YUAN, Natalia ZAGORSKA-THOMAS, Meng ZHANG, Tant Yunshu ZHONG, Dan ZHU
Tabula Rasa Gallery
25 – 29 March 2026
Press release
Tabula Rasa Gallery is delighted to announce our participation in the Galleries sector of Art Basel Hong Kong this year. Our presentation brings together a group of women artists, featuring works ranging from painting and installation to knitted tapestries, highlighting a range of distinct material and visual approaches.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Katarina CASERMAN (b.1996, Slovenia) is a London-based painter. The challenge of representing nonmaterial matter is central to Caserman's artistic inquiry. The artist believes that for each existing object, it requires a particular type of material to facilitate its growth, and within this process, the artist seeks to give form to the intangible. She recognises that thoughts, memories, and time exist beyond the bounds of our perceptible reality, yet they remain integral components of our lives. Her work aims to materialise these abstract concepts by imbuing them with tangible characteristics such as colour, shape, and movement. Caserman obtained her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art (2022) and BA in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (2019). She was awarded the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia’s Scholarship for Promising Young Artists (2020).
Kristy M. CHAN (b. 1997, Hong Kong) lives and works in London. Chan creates artworks that traverse between figuration and abstraction, resulting in energetic, intuitive, and autobiographical compositions. Departing from surreal and bewildering moments in contemporary life, Chan describes her works as 'stolen realities.' Primarily employing densely applied oil and oil stick, her paintings serve as visual archives of intense personal interactions amid the transient dynamism of the city. Living between Hong Kong and London, Chan incorporates subject matters from an outsider's perspective, contemplating the interplay between her identity influenced by both Eastern and Western cultures. Chan is intrigued by extracting descriptive metaphors from literature and reimagining them in her own unique way. Kristy M. Chan completed her BFA at UCL Slade School of Fine Art in 2019 and her MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Hiu Tung LAU (b. 1985, Hong Kong) lives and works in London. Her works span across various media including painting, sculpture, and performance. Through apparent simplicity and minimalist compositions, Lau attempts to convey the sea of complex human emotions. Her work can be regarded as a meditation over the process of painting where she explores experiences that had an emotional impact on her and inspired her to paint, whether it be a stranger she met, bushes from sidewalks, or the taste of kumquat. Hiu Tung Lau received her BFA in Painting from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2009 and her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2017.
Julia LONG, based in Beijing and born into a three-generation artistic family, is a boundary-breaking artist who explores her unique path beyond the conventional contemporary art career framework. She earned top honors with a bachelor's degree in world history from Nankai University and completed a master's in American history (specializing in gender history) at Georgia University with a full scholarship. Later, she moved to New York, working as a restaurant publicist while engaging in art-making, magazine writing, illustration, translation, and podcast hosting. Since 2017, Julia Long has lived in Beijing and become an artist, exhibiting in solo shows at Tabula Rasa Gallery in Beijing and London. In November 2024, her first institutional exhibition, Imaginary Girlfriend and Guardian Spirit: Rebellion and Freedom in Performative Narratives, opens at Bao Room by Bao Foundation in Shanghai. Her work, rooted in feminist, gender, and pop-cultural themes through translations and writings, merges her academic background with personal insights, offering a cross-cultural perspective. Her interests extend further into geopolitical history, cultural shifts, human-animal relationships, and the symbolic power of natural history, creating a multifaceted discourse on contemporary identity.
Cheri SMITH (b. 1991, Essex, UK) currently lives and works in London. Her work explores themes of animality, embodiment, wildness, and strangeness. Cheri’s painted world and its symbolic elements are deeply rooted in the principles of nature. Earthy colours and a sensitivity to natural details and textures draw attention to the organic cycles of life. Animals and plants recur as lively symbols, weaving individual elements into a collective narrative. Through her unique lens, Cheri addresses complex themes such as life and death, reaching toward the origins and continuities of existence. She paints with oil, egg tempera, and glue distemper on various supports including canvas, wood panels, and book covers. Beyond traditional techniques, Smith employs a distinctive method of layering thin, tonal glazes to create a subtle luminosity. Her paintings are not merely individual images but living components that blur the boundaries between reality and imagination. Cheri Smith received her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts in 2013, then completed her post-graduate degree in Drawing from Royal Drawing School in 2018, where she was awarded the Trustees Prize.
Clare THACKWAY (b.1984, Canberra, Australia) is an Australian artist who lives and works in Paris. Known for her forthright and intimate portraits and figurative paintings, the body in Clare Thackway’s paintings becomes a semaphore through which she contemplates moments of human experience, from the emotional to the societal. Informed by ideas in psychology, feminism and the history of painting, she considers how internal and collective experiences affect the ways in which we hold ourselves. The artist works with the fluid associations of cloth and pattern, illuminating the inner threads of our implicit memories and the deep and intricate connectivity between people. Her decisive and scratched back painted marks drag light off the surface of the body, exposing luminous translucent skin. This prudent use of paint gives pulsing life to flesh, revealing the layers that exist subtly underneath.
XIAO Hanqiu (b.1986 in Beijing, China) is a painter and a poet based in Beijing, China. Xiao’s paintings on canvas juxtapose objects in situations that conjure the ethereal magic and intensity of being. Her paintings operate like her poems—linear narrative is rejected in favour of open questions that reflect on the complexity, ineffability, and inconstancy of experience. Xiao received her MA Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2011, and BA Fine Art from Leeds University in 2008.
Yuan YUAN (b.1984, Beijing, China) currently lives and works in Beijing, China. She received her Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Central Academy of Fine Arts. She is best recognised for her large-scale paintings of flowers. Via Yuan Yuan’s large-scale paintings, the flower appears to be a non-subjective object. The blossom on the still-standing branches is held by feather-like green leaves, occupying the frame freely and at the same time extending outside the picture, as if the flower itself is already in self-actualisation at a majestic posture before the depiction.
Natalia ZAGORSKA-THOMAS is a London-based Polish-British artist, curator and textile conservator whose practice spans mixed media, installation and performance. She holds a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and an MA in Textile Conservation from the Textile Conservation Centre at the University of Southampton. She is also the founder and curator of Studio ExPurgamento, an independent exhibition space in Camden Town presenting work by both international and UK-based artists. Her artistic practice is shaped by her long-standing experience in conservation and the museum sector. As a textile conservator, she has worked with institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of London, Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the National Trust, Zenzie Tinker Textile Conservation Ltd., and the Royal Collection.
ZHANG Meng (b.1983, Tianjin, China) graduated from the Karlsruhe National Academy of Design in Germany with a PhD degree. She currently lives and works in Stuttgart, Germany and Beijing, China. Her creations reflect her wild imagination of the collective West and East mythologies. Furthermore, figures in her paintings are often emotionally troubled and detached or obscured and hidden within the landscapes, conveying a sense of fragility and strangeness. This is also tangible in the media she employs — charcoal, pencil, hot wax and paper — which are naturally brittle, slippery and ephemeral. In 2025, the artist participated in the artist residency program at the Jan van Eyck Academie. In 2022–23, Zhang Meng received the Artist Award from the Stiftung Kunstfonds in Germany and completed a residency at Schloss Plüschow in Germany in 2020.
Dan ZHU (b.1985, Jiangxi Province, China) currently lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands and Shenyang, China. She was the artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (2018–2019) and received the Dutch Royal Modern Painting Prize in 2020. Zhu's first institutional show will open at Museum Kranenburgh in the Netherlands in 2025.
Tabula Rasa Gallery is delighted to announce our participation in the Galleries sector of Art Basel Hong Kong this year. Our presentation brings together a group of women artists, featuring works ranging from painting and installation to knitted tapestries, highlighting a range of distinct material and visual approaches.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Katarina CASERMAN (b.1996, Slovenia) is a London-based painter. The challenge of representing nonmaterial matter is central to Caserman's artistic inquiry. The artist believes that for each existing object, it requires a particular type of material to facilitate its growth, and within this process, the artist seeks to give form to the intangible. She recognises that thoughts, memories, and time exist beyond the bounds of our perceptible reality, yet they remain integral components of our lives. Her work aims to materialise these abstract concepts by imbuing them with tangible characteristics such as colour, shape, and movement. Caserman obtained her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art (2022) and BA in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (2019). She was awarded the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia’s Scholarship for Promising Young Artists (2020).
Kristy M. CHAN (b. 1997, Hong Kong) lives and works in London. Chan creates artworks that traverse between figuration and abstraction, resulting in energetic, intuitive, and autobiographical compositions. Departing from surreal and bewildering moments in contemporary life, Chan describes her works as 'stolen realities.' Primarily employing densely applied oil and oil stick, her paintings serve as visual archives of intense personal interactions amid the transient dynamism of the city. Living between Hong Kong and London, Chan incorporates subject matters from an outsider's perspective, contemplating the interplay between her identity influenced by both Eastern and Western cultures. Chan is intrigued by extracting descriptive metaphors from literature and reimagining them in her own unique way. Kristy M. Chan completed her BFA at UCL Slade School of Fine Art in 2019 and her MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Hiu Tung LAU (b. 1985, Hong Kong) lives and works in London. Her works span across various media including painting, sculpture, and performance. Through apparent simplicity and minimalist compositions, Lau attempts to convey the sea of complex human emotions. Her work can be regarded as a meditation over the process of painting where she explores experiences that had an emotional impact on her and inspired her to paint, whether it be a stranger she met, bushes from sidewalks, or the taste of kumquat. Hiu Tung Lau received her BFA in Painting from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2009 and her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2017.
Julia LONG, based in Beijing and born into a three-generation artistic family, is a boundary-breaking artist who explores her unique path beyond the conventional contemporary art career framework. She earned top honors with a bachelor's degree in world history from Nankai University and completed a master's in American history (specializing in gender history) at Georgia University with a full scholarship. Later, she moved to New York, working as a restaurant publicist while engaging in art-making, magazine writing, illustration, translation, and podcast hosting. Since 2017, Julia Long has lived in Beijing and become an artist, exhibiting in solo shows at Tabula Rasa Gallery in Beijing and London. In November 2024, her first institutional exhibition, Imaginary Girlfriend and Guardian Spirit: Rebellion and Freedom in Performative Narratives, opens at Bao Room by Bao Foundation in Shanghai. Her work, rooted in feminist, gender, and pop-cultural themes through translations and writings, merges her academic background with personal insights, offering a cross-cultural perspective. Her interests extend further into geopolitical history, cultural shifts, human-animal relationships, and the symbolic power of natural history, creating a multifaceted discourse on contemporary identity.
Cheri SMITH (b. 1991, Essex, UK) currently lives and works in London. Her work explores themes of animality, embodiment, wildness, and strangeness. Cheri’s painted world and its symbolic elements are deeply rooted in the principles of nature. Earthy colours and a sensitivity to natural details and textures draw attention to the organic cycles of life. Animals and plants recur as lively symbols, weaving individual elements into a collective narrative. Through her unique lens, Cheri addresses complex themes such as life and death, reaching toward the origins and continuities of existence. She paints with oil, egg tempera, and glue distemper on various supports including canvas, wood panels, and book covers. Beyond traditional techniques, Smith employs a distinctive method of layering thin, tonal glazes to create a subtle luminosity. Her paintings are not merely individual images but living components that blur the boundaries between reality and imagination. Cheri Smith received her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts in 2013, then completed her post-graduate degree in Drawing from Royal Drawing School in 2018, where she was awarded the Trustees Prize.
Clare THACKWAY (b.1984, Canberra, Australia) is an Australian artist who lives and works in Paris. Known for her forthright and intimate portraits and figurative paintings, the body in Clare Thackway’s paintings becomes a semaphore through which she contemplates moments of human experience, from the emotional to the societal. Informed by ideas in psychology, feminism and the history of painting, she considers how internal and collective experiences affect the ways in which we hold ourselves. The artist works with the fluid associations of cloth and pattern, illuminating the inner threads of our implicit memories and the deep and intricate connectivity between people. Her decisive and scratched back painted marks drag light off the surface of the body, exposing luminous translucent skin. This prudent use of paint gives pulsing life to flesh, revealing the layers that exist subtly underneath.
XIAO Hanqiu (b.1986 in Beijing, China) is a painter and a poet based in Beijing, China. Xiao’s paintings on canvas juxtapose objects in situations that conjure the ethereal magic and intensity of being. Her paintings operate like her poems—linear narrative is rejected in favour of open questions that reflect on the complexity, ineffability, and inconstancy of experience. Xiao received her MA Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2011, and BA Fine Art from Leeds University in 2008.
Yuan YUAN (b.1984, Beijing, China) currently lives and works in Beijing, China. She received her Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Central Academy of Fine Arts. She is best recognised for her large-scale paintings of flowers. Via Yuan Yuan’s large-scale paintings, the flower appears to be a non-subjective object. The blossom on the still-standing branches is held by feather-like green leaves, occupying the frame freely and at the same time extending outside the picture, as if the flower itself is already in self-actualisation at a majestic posture before the depiction.
Natalia ZAGORSKA-THOMAS is a London-based Polish-British artist, curator and textile conservator whose practice spans mixed media, installation and performance. She holds a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and an MA in Textile Conservation from the Textile Conservation Centre at the University of Southampton. She is also the founder and curator of Studio ExPurgamento, an independent exhibition space in Camden Town presenting work by both international and UK-based artists. Her artistic practice is shaped by her long-standing experience in conservation and the museum sector. As a textile conservator, she has worked with institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of London, Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the National Trust, Zenzie Tinker Textile Conservation Ltd., and the Royal Collection.
ZHANG Meng (b.1983, Tianjin, China) graduated from the Karlsruhe National Academy of Design in Germany with a PhD degree. She currently lives and works in Stuttgart, Germany and Beijing, China. Her creations reflect her wild imagination of the collective West and East mythologies. Furthermore, figures in her paintings are often emotionally troubled and detached or obscured and hidden within the landscapes, conveying a sense of fragility and strangeness. This is also tangible in the media she employs — charcoal, pencil, hot wax and paper — which are naturally brittle, slippery and ephemeral. In 2025, the artist participated in the artist residency program at the Jan van Eyck Academie. In 2022–23, Zhang Meng received the Artist Award from the Stiftung Kunstfonds in Germany and completed a residency at Schloss Plüschow in Germany in 2020.
Dan ZHU (b.1985, Jiangxi Province, China) currently lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands and Shenyang, China. She was the artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (2018–2019) and received the Dutch Royal Modern Painting Prize in 2020. Zhu's first institutional show will open at Museum Kranenburgh in the Netherlands in 2025.
Tabula Rasa Gallery (London)
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Tuesday - Saturday 12:00 - 18:00 | Sunday - Monday Closed
© 2022 Tabula Rasa Gallery