The Journey of the Fool: three painters map inner thresholds and everyday visions

Like an initiatory passage, The Journey of the Fool invites viewers to move through images and mental states suspended between intuition and revelation. The exhibition brings together three painters whose practices, while distinct in language and atmosphere, converge around the idea of an inner journey shaped by thresholds, visions, and moments of transformation.
Kong Lingnan draws on the symbolic imagery of tarot to construct a narrative of consciousness. Figures such as the Magician, the Lovers, the Hermit, and the Hanged Man become archetypes of transition, evoking awakening, moral choice, and the possibility of gaining new perspectives through sacrifice. In Cheng Chit Yan’s work, attention shifts to liminal spaces. Windows, aquariums, and fences function as psychological thresholds that both separate and connect viewer and image. In a scene suffused with milky light, an aquarium glimpsed behind a metal barrier holds brightly colored fish, turning a fleeting urban memory into a quiet moment of contemplation. With Gao Yuan, the journey moves into seemingly ordinary interiors rendered with almost narrative precision. A cat’s food bowl, overflowing ashtrays, and paint traces on an easel suggest the presence of an unseen inhabitant, inviting viewers to imagine the lives and stories that quietly inhabit these rooms.