Amid the rain-filtered light and suspended humidity of Shanghai, matter transforms into silent poetry. At 70 Square Metres, the solo exhibition of Arashi Tanaka - the fourth artist in the gallery’s residency program - takes shape, inviting viewers to contemplate beauty as a mute, vibrant presence. The title, drawn from a famous passage by Zhuangzi, signals the artist’s philosophical horizon: nature speaks without words, through imperceptible rhythms and unseen vibrations. Tanaka blends photography, sculpture, and organic chemistry to translate what normally escapes the eye. Portraits and landscapes are submerged in saline solutions where recorded sounds - from a subject’s heartbeat to the crash of ocean waves - guide the growth of crystals across the photographic surface. The resulting images hover between science and contemplation, each crystal a trace of dialogue between humanity and nature. In the Portrait series, heartbeats become visual topographies, in Seascape, seawater and coastal recordings capture the atmosphere of the shore. These works, resembling mineral maps, invite visitors into a sensory journey where sound, memory, and breath converge. In this balance between natural process and artistic gesture, Tanaka captures a “universal beauty” that needs no words to be felt.
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