Artist frames imagination
Fantasy and personal expression combine for a unique approach, Li Yingxue reports.
A laptop with several Kumamon and Shiba Inu stickers. A pen holder dressed like a ballerina in a puffed black skirt. Paintbrushes and sketches strewn across a long desk.
This isn't just the workspace of 20-year-old Chinese artist Chen Yanran — it's a portal into her vivid, whimsical world. And now, she's brought the entire setup into a gallery.
For her China debut solo exhibition, Neon Dreamland, now showing at Beijing's newly launched Art Focus, Chen has re-created her creative sanctuary within the gallery — the very space where her art is born — as playful fantasy meets personal expression through sculpture and paint.
Curated by actor Yuan Hong, founder of the cultural platform Art Knock, the show that runs through to July 6 also marks the official opening exhibition of the 2025 Gallery Weekend Beijing.
Drawing on the vivid palette of digital art and dreamlike logic of fantasy, Neon Dreamland opens a portal to the surreal and intimate rhythms of Chen's inner world.
"The name of the exhibition comes from my dreams, my life experiences, and the things I love," Chen explains.
