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
Realms of Their Own
Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing
5 September - 24 October 2026
Opening: Saturday, 5 September 2026, 4pm
Press release
The dense accumulation of fruit, textiles and people in a Kashgar bazaar; layers of lacquer built up in the mountains of Beifeng, Fuzhou; a low horizon stretching across the plains of Luoyang; a moment when the everyday suddenly turns strange—four images rooted in different places, each opening onto a way of seeing distinctly its own.
Tabula Rasa Gallery is pleased to present Realms of Their Own, a group exhibition featuring recent works by Alimjan Adil, Lei Yu, Huang Haiyan and Ji Ye, on view in Beijing from 5 September to 24 October 2026.
Alimjan Adil’s paintings take shape around the streets, bazaars, fruit stalls and urban edges of Xinjiang. The profuse and saturated colours of everyday life are transformed into a distinct pictorial order. Figures, goods, architecture and geometric motifs drawn from traditional decorative arts intersect across his canvases, giving reality both a tangible warmth and a pronounced rhythm. Moving between representation and ornament, Alimjan has developed a pictorial language that is dense, luminous and unmistakably his own.
Lei Yu lives and works in a late-Qing house in the mountains of Beifeng, Fuzhou. The surrounding forest is both her immediate environment and a means of recalibrating bodily and sensory perception. Working primarily with lacquer, she allows the material’s lustre, depth and capacity for transformation to enter the work through repeated processes of coating, layering, polishing and waiting. Lacquer’s hardness and fragility, as well as its ability to seal and reveal, coexist within her practice, creating surfaces where the human body, the natural world and time come into contact.
Huang Haiyan repeatedly depicts almost flattened expanses of open land. Their earth, vegetation and distant horizons emerge from her life in Luoyang as well as from an inner landscape continually reshaped by childhood memory. She compresses space and slows narrative, holding familiar scenes at the point where reality and recollection overlap. Nostalgia here is more than a backward glance towards home; it becomes a persistent vantage point from which, even after growing up and moving away, one continues to recognise the world through the places one once inhabited.
Ji Ye’s practice has been shaped by movements between Harbin, Beijing and New York, and has unfolded across ink painting, acrylic on board, copperplate etching, installation and artists’ books. From personal experience and fragments of everyday life, she draws out moments that resist precise naming: the subtle distances between people, the instant when emotion suddenly loses its footing, and the strangeness that occasionally surfaces within an otherwise quiet life. Simple colours and forms reminiscent of children’s drawings create the lucid surfaces of her works, bringing the distinctly adult emotions they hold into sharper relief.
The title Realms of Their Own names the distinct ground each artist has made through their practice. Across the crowded streets of Xinjiang, the lacquered surfaces of Beifeng, the flattened landscapes of Luoyang and the estranged moments of everyday life, each realm possesses its own atmosphere, rhythm and horizon. Their meeting here grows out of an affinity recognised over time through the gallery’s sustained engagement with their work. Each artist’s world is already unmistakably their own, and each continues to unfold.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Alimjan Adil was born in Xinjiang in 1997. He graduated from the Second Studio of the Oil Painting Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and currently lives and works in Urumqi. His practice focuses on the everyday life and cultural landscape of Xinjiang. Grounded in representational painting, his work incorporates distinctive decorative elements and reflects the visual intersections between folk traditions and contemporary life. Drawing on figures, street scenes and urban environments, Alimjan uses composition, colour and materiality to construct layered pictorial spaces with a pronounced sense of rhythm. Geometric motifs derived from traditional Xinjiang decorative arts frequently appear in his paintings, contributing to a pictorial language that is both regionally rooted and distinctly his own. His solo exhibitions include Night, Gaotai Contemporary Art Centre, Urumqi (2026). Selected group exhibitions include Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, National Agricultural Exhibition Centre, Beijing (2026); Winter Travellers, O2art 798 Space, Beijing (2025); the 5th Huajiadi Biennale, ParkArt, Beijing (2024); New Era Capital Art Exhibition, China National Academy of Painting, Beijing (2024); National Exhibition for Young Artists: Beijing, Season 1, Beijing Phoenix Art Materials Experience Centre, Beijing (2024); and 2023 China Contemporary Art Exhibition, YinQiu Gallery, online (2023).
Lei Yu was born in Fuzhou, China, in 1990. She received her bachelor’s degree in lacquer art from the China Academy of Art in 2014 and currently lives and works in Fuzhou. Working primarily with lacquer, Lei explores the relationship between material, time, the body and the natural world. Her practice is shaped by the physical processes of coating, layering, polishing and waiting, as well as by the changing environment surrounding her studio in the mountains of Beifeng. Through these processes, she draws out lacquer’s contrasting qualities—its hardness and fragility, permanence and susceptibility to change. Her solo exhibitions include The Jade in Solitude, the Stone in Mediocrity, Hunsand Space, Hangzhou (2025). Selected group exhibitions include Mise en Abyme: Touring Exhibition of Creative Forces from Fujian, Model Bookstore, Beijing (2024); Bon Voyage, CAIRA ROOM, Shanghai (2024); Affinity of Objects: Quan Er 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Shanghai (2023); Landscapes, Hunsand Contemporary Art Centre, Shijiazhuang (2022); and Gravity Project, Fuzhou (2022). Lei received the Bronze Award of the Lin Fengmian Graduation Creation Awards from the China Academy of Art. Her work is held in the collection of the Fujian Art Museum.
Huang Haiyan was born in Luoyang, Henan Province, in 1993 and currently lives and works in Luoyang. She received her bachelor’s degree from the College of Liberal Arts at Southwest University in 2016 and her master’s degree from the Printmaking Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2021. Huang’s paintings centre on sparsely populated expanses of open land shaped by her experience of Luoyang and by memories of childhood. Through compressed space, restrained narratives and flattened perspectives, she explores the ways in which place, memory and nostalgia continue to inform how the world is perceived. Her solo exhibitions include Not Very Dangerous Yet, Prototype Gallery, Luoyang (2025), and Zhongyuan Living Room, Together Gallery, Hefei (2024). Selected group exhibitions include Scissors, Spindle and Thread, Gallery MC, Shenzhen (2025); Good Friends Project 2025, PETITREE ART, Shenzhen (2025); Scripts on the Fly II, Tabula Rasa Gallery and Canton Gallery, Beijing (2024); Scripts on the Fly, Canton Gallery, Guangzhou (2024); Threshold Space, NAT SPACE, Nanjing (2024); In Other Words, Prototype Gallery, Luoyang (2023); Walking in the Zoo Is the Most Serious Thing, Keyi Gallery, Hefei (2023); Folding and Covering, Hongkun Museum of Fine Art, Beijing (2022); and The Gleaners: Artist Fair, Dreamland Art Centre, Beijing (2022).
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).
The dense accumulation of fruit, textiles and people in a Kashgar bazaar; layers of lacquer built up in the mountains of Beifeng, Fuzhou; a low horizon stretching across the plains of Luoyang; a moment when the everyday suddenly turns strange—four images rooted in different places, each opening onto a way of seeing distinctly its own.
Tabula Rasa Gallery is pleased to present Realms of Their Own, a group exhibition featuring recent works by Alimjan Adil, Lei Yu, Huang Haiyan and Ji Ye, on view in Beijing from 5 September to 24 October 2026.
Alimjan Adil’s paintings take shape around the streets, bazaars, fruit stalls and urban edges of Xinjiang. The profuse and saturated colours of everyday life are transformed into a distinct pictorial order. Figures, goods, architecture and geometric motifs drawn from traditional decorative arts intersect across his canvases, giving reality both a tangible warmth and a pronounced rhythm. Moving between representation and ornament, Alimjan has developed a pictorial language that is dense, luminous and unmistakably his own.
Lei Yu lives and works in a late-Qing house in the mountains of Beifeng, Fuzhou. The surrounding forest is both her immediate environment and a means of recalibrating bodily and sensory perception. Working primarily with lacquer, she allows the material’s lustre, depth and capacity for transformation to enter the work through repeated processes of coating, layering, polishing and waiting. Lacquer’s hardness and fragility, as well as its ability to seal and reveal, coexist within her practice, creating surfaces where the human body, the natural world and time come into contact.
Huang Haiyan repeatedly depicts almost flattened expanses of open land. Their earth, vegetation and distant horizons emerge from her life in Luoyang as well as from an inner landscape continually reshaped by childhood memory. She compresses space and slows narrative, holding familiar scenes at the point where reality and recollection overlap. Nostalgia here is more than a backward glance towards home; it becomes a persistent vantage point from which, even after growing up and moving away, one continues to recognise the world through the places one once inhabited.
Ji Ye’s practice has been shaped by movements between Harbin, Beijing and New York, and has unfolded across ink painting, acrylic on board, copperplate etching, installation and artists’ books. From personal experience and fragments of everyday life, she draws out moments that resist precise naming: the subtle distances between people, the instant when emotion suddenly loses its footing, and the strangeness that occasionally surfaces within an otherwise quiet life. Simple colours and forms reminiscent of children’s drawings create the lucid surfaces of her works, bringing the distinctly adult emotions they hold into sharper relief.
The title Realms of Their Own names the distinct ground each artist has made through their practice. Across the crowded streets of Xinjiang, the lacquered surfaces of Beifeng, the flattened landscapes of Luoyang and the estranged moments of everyday life, each realm possesses its own atmosphere, rhythm and horizon. Their meeting here grows out of an affinity recognised over time through the gallery’s sustained engagement with their work. Each artist’s world is already unmistakably their own, and each continues to unfold.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Alimjan Adil was born in Xinjiang in 1997. He graduated from the Second Studio of the Oil Painting Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and currently lives and works in Urumqi. His practice focuses on the everyday life and cultural landscape of Xinjiang. Grounded in representational painting, his work incorporates distinctive decorative elements and reflects the visual intersections between folk traditions and contemporary life. Drawing on figures, street scenes and urban environments, Alimjan uses composition, colour and materiality to construct layered pictorial spaces with a pronounced sense of rhythm. Geometric motifs derived from traditional Xinjiang decorative arts frequently appear in his paintings, contributing to a pictorial language that is both regionally rooted and distinctly his own. His solo exhibitions include Night, Gaotai Contemporary Art Centre, Urumqi (2026). Selected group exhibitions include Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, National Agricultural Exhibition Centre, Beijing (2026); Winter Travellers, O2art 798 Space, Beijing (2025); the 5th Huajiadi Biennale, ParkArt, Beijing (2024); New Era Capital Art Exhibition, China National Academy of Painting, Beijing (2024); National Exhibition for Young Artists: Beijing, Season 1, Beijing Phoenix Art Materials Experience Centre, Beijing (2024); and 2023 China Contemporary Art Exhibition, YinQiu Gallery, online (2023).
Lei Yu was born in Fuzhou, China, in 1990. She received her bachelor’s degree in lacquer art from the China Academy of Art in 2014 and currently lives and works in Fuzhou. Working primarily with lacquer, Lei explores the relationship between material, time, the body and the natural world. Her practice is shaped by the physical processes of coating, layering, polishing and waiting, as well as by the changing environment surrounding her studio in the mountains of Beifeng. Through these processes, she draws out lacquer’s contrasting qualities—its hardness and fragility, permanence and susceptibility to change. Her solo exhibitions include The Jade in Solitude, the Stone in Mediocrity, Hunsand Space, Hangzhou (2025). Selected group exhibitions include Mise en Abyme: Touring Exhibition of Creative Forces from Fujian, Model Bookstore, Beijing (2024); Bon Voyage, CAIRA ROOM, Shanghai (2024); Affinity of Objects: Quan Er 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Shanghai (2023); Landscapes, Hunsand Contemporary Art Centre, Shijiazhuang (2022); and Gravity Project, Fuzhou (2022). Lei received the Bronze Award of the Lin Fengmian Graduation Creation Awards from the China Academy of Art. Her work is held in the collection of the Fujian Art Museum.
Huang Haiyan was born in Luoyang, Henan Province, in 1993 and currently lives and works in Luoyang. She received her bachelor’s degree from the College of Liberal Arts at Southwest University in 2016 and her master’s degree from the Printmaking Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2021. Huang’s paintings centre on sparsely populated expanses of open land shaped by her experience of Luoyang and by memories of childhood. Through compressed space, restrained narratives and flattened perspectives, she explores the ways in which place, memory and nostalgia continue to inform how the world is perceived. Her solo exhibitions include Not Very Dangerous Yet, Prototype Gallery, Luoyang (2025), and Zhongyuan Living Room, Together Gallery, Hefei (2024). Selected group exhibitions include Scissors, Spindle and Thread, Gallery MC, Shenzhen (2025); Good Friends Project 2025, PETITREE ART, Shenzhen (2025); Scripts on the Fly II, Tabula Rasa Gallery and Canton Gallery, Beijing (2024); Scripts on the Fly, Canton Gallery, Guangzhou (2024); Threshold Space, NAT SPACE, Nanjing (2024); In Other Words, Prototype Gallery, Luoyang (2023); Walking in the Zoo Is the Most Serious Thing, Keyi Gallery, Hefei (2023); Folding and Covering, Hongkun Museum of Fine Art, Beijing (2022); and The Gleaners: Artist Fair, Dreamland Art Centre, Beijing (2022).
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).
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
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