BONIAN SPACE is pleased to announce the group exhibition Lingering Presence, from December 27, 2025 to January 25, 2026. Marking the last show at BONIAN SPACE’s Qixing East Street location, the exhibition brings together more than fifty recent works by seven young artists: Chang CHENG, FENG Lingjun, Yinuo LI, Xinghao LIANG, LIU Yishuo, LUO Kailun, and Zhang Rongyuan.
Within the artists’ modes of perception, time is approached as an open condition rather than a fixed trajectory. It does not unfold as a linear sequence of progress; instead, when the logic of advancement loosens, experience becomes available to other forms of articulation. The exhibition engages not the moment as a completed event, but those retained and repeatedly revisited slices of experience that resist closure. Neither vanished nor resolved, they persist in a state of ongoing emergence. Here, suspension functions as a means of thickening experience—slowing perception and intensifying awareness. This understanding of time does not rely on external measurement, but gestures toward a form of lived extension, which is what Henri Bergson (Henri Bergson) described as durée.
For Bergson, time is not composed of discrete, quantifiable instants, but unfolds as a continuous and indivisible flow. The past does not recede into absence; it endures as memory, continually shaping present perception. Durée is therefore not the accumulation of temporal length, but a process of internal becoming, in which sensation, memory, and affect interpenetrate. The present emerges not as a fixed point, but as an elastic condition—carrying the trace of what has just occurred while remaining open to what has yet to take form. The artists gathered here do not seek to arrest time or narrate its passage. Instead, their practices inhabit subtle intervals: moments in which images have not yet dissipated, emotions have not yet settled, and objects continue to resonate with memory. These intervals are not empty gaps, but sites of heightened experiential density, where images recur, everyday materials are held in sustained attention, and fleeting affects are momentarily suspended. Within Lingering Presence, time neither advances nor disappears; it remains supple and unresolved, extending quietly within perception.
Liang Xinghao’s practice explores the relationship between time, space, and objects, focusing on how time is experienced in specific situations. His works often present scenes and materials in a suspended state, as if something has just happened or is about to happen. In this way, the act of viewing becomes part of how time unfolds. Time no longer sits quietly in the background, but appears as a visible condition within the space—fragmented, layered, and open. Past traces and present perception overlap, creating a sense of presence that sits between stillness and movement. Whereas Cheng Chang’s work grows out of her reflections on the Anthropocene and ideas that move beyond human-centered thinking. She imagines future ecosystems in which plants and human organs merge, forming new and unfamiliar life forms. In her paintings, time does not point toward progress or disaster. Instead, it lingers at a moment after human dominance has faded, yet before a new order has fully taken shape. This is a moment of quiet emergence, where life continues through coexistence and shared growth rather than control.
The practices of Feng Lingjun, Zhang Rongyuan, and Luo Kailun all focus on emotional moments that resist clear storytelling, yet remain deeply present in memory. Feng Lingjun’s paintings are rooted in personal feeling and childhood memory. Influenced by existential thought, his work reflects the tension between what feels real and what has become uncertain over time. Water appears repeatedly as a visual metaphor, allowing memories to shift, blur, and reform. The red houses—drawn from his hometown—carry both personal and collective meaning. For Feng, painting becomes a way to return to these memories, allowing long-held emotions to quietly surface. Zhang Rongyuan turns her attention to everyday objects, often from earlier decades. Through soft, mist-like layers and blurred outlines, these objects appear as faint traces left by time. Rather than recreating the past, Zhang focuses on the feeling of looking back—on a sense of loss and distance that cannot be resolved. Her repeated acts of painting and covering hold the viewer in a brief pause, somewhere between memory and anticipation. Luo Kailun’s work also moves between memory and daily life, shaped by private spaces and close relationships. His paintings build through layered brushstrokes and subtle color shifts, capturing moments before emotions settle into clear meaning. The images feel open and unfinished, like passing thoughts. While they hint at narrative, they never fully explain themselves. Time in his work remains gently suspended, held within the rhythm of color and gesture.
Liu Yishuo uses the sofa as a simulacrum to explore the boundary between reality and illusion in a postmodern context. By stripping it of its everyday function, he transforms the sofa into a closed symbolic system, constructing a hyperreal space where the familiar object no longer refers to lived experience, but to representation itself. In his work, the sofa suggests both comfort and quiet restraint. The viewer’s gaze enters this constructed illusion, becoming part of a space shaped by simulacra, where reality is gradually displaced by signs that appear real yet remain detached from their original source.
Li Yinuo’s practice centers on inner spiritual experience, drawing inspiration from dream fragments, the subconscious, and fleeting everyday thoughts. Her work traces emotional flow and intimacy within an East Asian cultural context, translating illogical and drifting perceptions into organic visual spaces. Through the use of fluid materials, layered washes, and abstract structures, she creates images in which the real and the imagined gently overlap. Informed by cyclical philosophies of existence, her work rejects linear time in favor of continuity and return, balancing restraint with expressive freedom. Emotion and reflection are not stated directly, but emerge through wavering lines, soft colors, and rhythmic compositions, inviting viewers into a quiet, resonant state of contemplation.
