Familiar strangeness is the frayed edge of the memory, before it is trimmed and made neat. In our era of digital overload, our minds often stumble upon moments when the familiar suddenly turns strange—a common character loses its meaning after we gaze at it too long, a well-known melody sounds oddly out of place in a new setting. This is the sensation of jamais vu: when the known becomes alien, and the reality slips into uncertainty.

Xu Chenyang captures this delicate, in-between state in his visual art, inviting viewers into a threshold between the memory and the imagination, the reality and the surreal. Through subtle transformations of classic motifs—castles, scholar’s rocks, ladders, horses—he distills this cognitive experience into visual fables. His canvases become Rorschach tests for our sense of reality, where the almost-recognizable forms reflect the workings and limits of our perception.

Opening Reception: 4 July, 2025, 5:00 – 8:00 PM

Gallery address: 2/F, New World Tower II, 18 Queen's Road Central