Kiang Malingue is pleased to present at its Hong Kong headquarters “Summer”, an exhibition of recent paintings and works on paper by Liu Yin. The exhibition continues the artist’s exploration of nature that began with her 2023 exhibition “Spring”, revealing gentle and surging emotions in flowers, trees, fruits, seas and rocks.

More than a dozen paintings on view at Kiang Malingue’s Sik On Street space are organized into three chapters. In the first series of paintings, one sees a number of fruit-figures floating and frolicking in the waters: works such as River #1 (2025) reflect the artist’s interest in small bodies of water, such as rivers and streams, where traces of life remain and constantly redefine the environment in which they are left—the natural elements found in the waters interact with one another, adding another lively layer to the complex ecosystem of the flowing waters. In these paintings, Liu continues to paint adorable shōjo manga faces over flowers, leaves, and fruits, turning them into sentient, sensitive beings. They are unapologetically emotional in the network of affect they form with the environments, guiding the viewer’s gaze through compositions that deal with bodily concerns and expressiveness. Another work in this chapter, Summer (2025), actively draws the viewer’s body into a verdant landscape where joyful flowers emerge from a deep labyrinth of branches and leaves.

The large-scale painting Night Scene (2025), on view in the second part of the exhibition, depicts a peach tree at night. Most of the tree’s branches are hidden in the dark, while the large fruits are totally shrouded in bright light. Informed by Suzuki Harunobu’s ukiyo-e, Liu replaces Suzuki’s figures strolling in gardens with peaches that give solemn and thoughtful looks. Blue Moon (2025) is based on a watercolor created by Liu in 2023, which depicts a loving moon resting above a pond of water lilies. A water lily in the pond turns its face away, reluctant to embrace the moon’s cool yet tender light. The two works in this chapter focus on non-human beings who reveal their loneliness at night, externalising a mental process through which connected and contradictory feelings reconcile with one another.

The two diptychs on the third floor of the Sik On Street space tell the most intense narratives. Waves (2024-2025) features looming huge waves with many faces—a reminder of the inseparable nature of non-human spirits from their environments, and a celebration of the radical potential of emotions to multiply and reinforce themselves. Another large-scale painting, Rocks (2025), also depicts a magnificent seascape, this time focusing on a pair of formidable rocks in the sea. These majestic guardians, tenacious and reticent, could be working with or against the water spirits in Waves, and forms an immediate connection with the viewer by projecting their unwavering gazes forward. Pertaining to confrontation, struggle, alliance, and kinship—the swirl in the foreground of the painting, once again informed by iconic ukiyo-e imagery, is Liu’s symbol of intense emotion—the paintings highlight the significance of emotivity and unfaltering resistance.

(About Liu Yin)

Liu Yin (b. 1984, Guangzhou) lives and works in Hong Kong. After receiving her master degree from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, in more than a decade’s time she has developed a subversive artistic language that uses exaggerated, watery and sparkling eyes to create classic shōjo manga faces on widely circulated contemporary images; public figures from academic, scientific, and political worlds; pop culture characters, and inanimate beings. Simultaneously concealing their expressions and revealing deeply hidden characters—a true self that is feminine or innocent—Liu reconstructs the emotions, feelings and narrative structures embedded in complex events.

Liu’s recent solo exhibitions include: “Spring”, Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong (2023); “Publica”, Arrow Factory, Beijing (2015); “Liu Yin: Oh, Chinese Boy… Don’t Be Ashamed…”, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, San Francisco (2011); “Reflections In the Soup”, Observation Society, Guangzhou (2010). Recent group exhibitions include: “Symbiotic Longing”, TAO ART, Taipei (2024); Meta Media Art Festival, Tai Koo Li Qiantan, Shanghai (2023); “Where Jellyfish Come From”, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2022); “In the Labyrinth”, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Shanghai (2021); “Dream (Is) land!”, MINE Project, Hong Kong (2021); “Folded Veil”, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); “Condo Shanghai”, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2019); “Full of Peril and Weirdness: Painting as a Universalism”, M WOODS Museum, Beijing (2015); “Berlin Studio”, Import Projects, Berlin (2014); “Transience: Intractable Objects”, Taikang Space, Beijing (2014); “Not in Fashion”, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou (2011).