2026.09 Ji Ye Interview Realms of Their Own

Alimjan Adil, Lei Yu, Huang Haiyan, Ji Ye
Realms of Their Own
Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing
5 September - 24 October 2026
Opening: Saturday, 5 September 2026, 4pm

In Conversation with Ji Ye: Beyond the Fairy Tale
Beijing, September 15, 2026

TRG = Tabula Rasa Gallery

This conversation between Isabelle of Tabula Rasa Gallery and artist Ji Ye explores her artistic journey, the different stages of her practice, and her recent works.

TRG
How did the pandemic, pregnancy, and becoming a mother change the way you see yourself and your life? How have these changes found their way into the works in this exhibition?

Ji Ye
My work has always been closely connected to my personal emotions and life experiences. For example, the period when I was making installations and the later period when I began painting plants more frequently each corresponded to a different stage of my life.

Becoming pregnant and giving birth during the pandemic naturally brought another shift in my work. For a while, I began incorporating pills and 3D-printed objects into my pieces, reflecting a period when I was very focused on my own body and personal experience. After my child was born, however, my perspective began to change. I was no longer experiencing myself only as an individual, but also through my new identity as a mother. This brought a more complex understanding of womanhood into my work, as well as a subtle sense of conflict and tension.

Some of the paintings in this exhibition are titled after poems by Emily Dickinson, which I feel also resonate with the state of mind I was in when I made them.

TRG
Why have you been painting more and more figures with their backs turned to the viewer?

Ji Ye
I think it has something to do with a sense of avoidance. Sometimes I find myself avoiding communication. In the past, I might have confronted things more directly and expressed myself more openly, whereas now I tend to avoid that kind of direct exchange. So the figures in my paintings often appear with their backs turned, as if refusing that direct encounter.

There is another reason, too. Apart from the figure that represents myself, the identities of the other figures are deliberately ambiguous. For me, what matters is not making it clear who they are, but conveying a certain tension between them.

As imperceptibly as Grief No.3
Acrylic on wood panel, 20 x 20 cm, 2026

TRG
Plants, figures, and mushrooms appear repeatedly in your work. Have they become symbols for you?

Ji Ye
I think some of them can be considered symbols. The mushrooms, for example, first appeared during the pandemic. I was in the late stages of pregnancy, and it was also the period when restrictions in Beijing were at their strictest. Mushrooms like these were not something you would normally see growing on the grass in Beijing unless the area was particularly damp.

Then suddenly, a whole group of black mushrooms appeared right in the middle of the large lawn in my residential compound. They had never grown there before. My first reaction was that they were a little frightening, but my second reaction was that they were incredibly cute.

I kept moving back and forth between these two feelings. The more I looked at them, the more interesting that tension became, so I kept the image and gradually brought it into my work. To me, the mushroom represents a kind of anxiety about the unknown.

Once the two mushroom paintings in this exhibition were finished, some viewers interpreted them as mushrooms holding up the things above them, while also seeming to push their way through and break out. That wasn't my intention, but I find that reading quite interesting.

Presentiments — is that long Shadow — on the Lawn No.1
Acrylic on wood panel 30 x 40 cm 2026

Presentiments — is that long Shadow — on the Lawn No.2
Acrylic on wood panel, 30 x 40 cm, 2026

TRG
Apart from mushrooms, the Clivia also appears repeatedly in the works in this exhibition. What does it mean to you?

Ji Ye
There are quite a lot of Clivia in this exhibition because it is a very common houseplant in families in Northeast China. I don't know if it is because they are particularly easy to keep alive indoors in that region, but I remember that whenever I visited my grandmother or the homes of other older relatives, there would always be a Clivia on the windowsill. Whether it was flowering or not, it was always there.

So I began to think of it as a symbol of family, and specifically of a more traditional kind of family. My mother doesn't grow Clivia, so I only ever saw it in the homes of older generations.

I think it carries a sense of warmth and familiarity, but at the same time, it also suggests the constraints of tradition, particularly the constraints placed on women. Women are often expected to take on more domestic and emotional labour within the family. During holidays, for example, when everyone gathers for a meal, women are usually the ones cooking, cleaning, decorating, and taking care of everything.

So I think the emotional meaning of this plant is quite complicated.

As imperceptibly as Grief No.5
Acrylic on wood panel, 20 x 20 cm, 2026

TRG
Are the female figures in your paintings also connected to this idea of women being constrained?

Ji Ye
Yes. In fact, that figure is based on myself. I've painted this character in many of my earlier works. I often draw my own hair as if it were covered in spikes. I think I'm actually quite rebellious. Not in an especially aggressive way, but in a gentler way. Sometimes you don't necessarily want to hurt anyone—you simply carry a few little spikes of your own.

For the women's clothing and some of their poses, I drew on imagery from Disney's Cinderella. I loved Cinderella when I was a child, both the animated film and the comics. There are many scenes of domestic labour in it, and I think that can also be understood as a form of conditioning—as if these were simply the things women were supposed to do.

As imperceptibly as Grief No.2
Acrylic on wood panel, 20 x 20 cm, 2026

When I was growing up watching all those princess movies, I would think, “Ah, so this is what a girl is supposed to be like.” That image stayed with me very strongly: a girl kneeling on the floor, doing her chores. I found the image interesting, so I brought it into my work.

She seems to enjoy herself while she works. In a way, she even looks quite happy, with all the little animals helping her. So there is something very complicated about the image. You find her endearing and even like her, but at the same time, you can't help feeling a little frustrated on her behalf.

As imperceptibly as Grief No.4
Acrylic on wood panel, 30 x 30 cm, 2026

TRG
You also spent some time living in New York. Looking back, what do you think that experience brought to your work?

Ji Ye
It had a pretty significant impact. When I was in China, I painted in ink. I also studied traditional ink painting as an undergraduate at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. But I wanted to try something different, so I took a leave from school and went to the US.

At first, I continued working with ink, but I gradually realised that, within that context, there were many aspects of ink painting that were difficult for people unfamiliar with it to understand.After having many conversations and exchanges with friends, I began to feel that I shouldn't be so attached to the material itself. I didn't need to use ink in order to make the kind of work I wanted to make.

I experimented with many different things at first, including printmaking and photography. Eventually, I settled on acrylic. For the next couple of years, I worked almost exclusively with acrylic.

A Secret Told
Acrylic on wood panel, 20 x 20 cm, 2026

TRG
It seems that you've now arrived at a more liberated way of working than before?

Ji Ye
Yes. I think I'm in the most comfortable state I've ever been in. Sometimes I still make other things or small works, such as zines and miniature accordion books.

TRG
Plants appear frequently in your work. Are they another way of expressing emotion, beyond the human figures?

Ji Ye
Yes. For example, in one of the paintings with a Clivia, there is already a conflict between the figures taking place in the corner of the composition. But I didn't want to depict that conflict directly. Instead, I wanted to place it within a domestic environment that appears warm and peaceful. At first glance, all you would see is simply a beautiful Clivia.

As imperceptibly as Grief No.1
Acrylic on wood panel, 30 x 60 cm, 2026

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ji Ye was born in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, in 1987 and currently lives and works in Beijing. She received her bachelor’s degree from the School of Chinese Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2010, an MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute, New York, in 2014, and a second master’s degree from the School of Chinese Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2016. Drawing on personal experiences and fragments of everyday life, Ji explores themes of emotion and human existence through painting, installation and artists’ books. Her works often combine clear, simple colours with forms reminiscent of children’s drawings. Beneath their seemingly calm surfaces, however, lie distinctly adult perspectives and emotional complexities. Her solo projects include When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday, Yesterday Becomes a Fragment of Memory, and Inner Peace Is the Only Thing That Lasts, C5CNM, Beijing (2023). Selected group exhibitions include Untender Green, XZ Space, Beijing (2025); Sanshi Space Observation and Discussion Programme, SIMPLE ONE, Beijing (2024); Not Only … but Also …, Sanshi Space, Beijing (2024); Fractionation, Safari Space, Beijing (2024); In the Narrative of Her, Powerlong Art Centre, Nanjing (2022); Uncommon Everyday, HABITAT, Shanghai (2021); Mickey: The True Original Exhibition World Tour, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2021); Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair, Haixinsha Exhibition Hall, Guangzhou (2020); and the 7th Beijing International Art Biennale, The Silk Road and World Civilisations, National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2017).