Artists: Marcos Lozano Merchán, Philippe Decrauzat, Raúl Rueda, Eamon Luo, Zheng Zicheng, Shao Fengtian, Liu Zifeng, Xiang Ziqi, Seohyun Oh, Grapebattleships, Wong Sze Wai, Yan Tian
About the Exhibition
HdM Gallery is pleased to present the summer group exhibition En Route III, which will be opening on 15 August 2026. As the third installment of the En Route series, the exhibition continues the ongoing exploration of fluidity and transformation in artistic practice, centering on the themes of Perceptibility, Memorability, and Internality.
En Route III examines how artists explore the relationships between language, experience, and perception through their creative practices, while revealing an evolving dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity, technology and humanity, viewer and artwork, and the individual and the collective. Bringing together representative works by twelve artists from diverse nations, including China, Spain, Switzerland, Mexico, South Korea, the exhibition will remain on view through September 12, 2026.
More than a notion of physical movement, En Route points to continuous transformation across the realms of consciousness, memory, and technology. Its emphasis on process resonates with some topics in contemporary philosophies of life, suggesting that things do not exist in fixed states but continually generate new possibilities through change, relationships, and lived experience. Rather than focusing on a predetermined destination, En Route is concerned with transformation as an ongoing process. By revisiting the past, responding to the present, and exploring the unknown, the participating artists approach artistic creation as an open-ended process through which they continually renegotiate their relationship with themselves and the world.
Many of the artists in the exhibition have cross-cultural backgrounds, and they are living and working within rapidly changing contemporary environments, confronting the accelerating evolution of technology, increasingly complex cultural contexts, and shifting social realities. They transcend established boundaries through diverse media and artistic approaches, developing distinctive visual languages rooted in perception, memory, and inner experience. As Giulio Carlo Argan observed, art enables us to reaffirm the forms of the human spirit within an ever-changing world. Through the practices of these artists, the exhibition likewise seeks to explore how individuals perceive the world, understand themselves, and cultivate new modes of seeing amid continual transformation.
The exhibition unfolds across three thematic sections.
Part 1: Memorability: Psychic Drifting
The first section features works by Marcos Lozano Merchán, Zheng Zicheng, Wong Sze Wai and Yan Tian.
In an era shaped by the rapid expansion of digital information, information overload, and algorithmic logic have profoundly transformed the ways in which we perceive the world, while our understanding of the complexity of reality is increasingly at risk of being reduced and simplified. Through the practices of these artists, this section examines how tradition, history, and memory can be reinterpreted within a contemporary context. Drawing upon diverse points of departure—including classical traditions, historical and cultural heritage, regional experience, immigrant diaspora and collective memory—the artists merge visual references from the past with contemporary artistic languages. As a result, the images evolving from diverse memories are no longer merely repositories of the past but become evolving psychological structures and modes of perception.
Within these works, the image is no longer simply an object to be viewed; it functions instead as an open network of connections. These works invite viewers into spaces where reality and fiction, tradition and contemporaneity, and memory and the present intersect, encouraging renewed awareness of the complex layers of perception embedded within everyday experience.
Part 2 Perceptibility: Multidimensional Interactions
The second section presents works by Philippe Decrauzat, Shao Fengtian, and Seohyun Oh. This section explores how artists investigate shifting modes of perception through the interplay between viewers and space, image, and technology. Responding to issues such as artificial intelligence, viewer participation, and the mechanisms of vision at present, the artists employ diverse approaches to challenge conventional understandings of spatial experience.
Within these works, the image is no longer a static visual object confined to a two-dimensional surface; instead, it becomes an ongoing process of interaction among perception, logic, technology, and intuition. Through strategies of visual defamiliarization, the artists immerse viewers into a perceptual environment defined by continual transformation.
Space consequently ceases to function merely as a backdrop for the artwork. Instead, it becomes an open field of encounter capable of engaging directly with the viewer. Together, these works challenge conventional conceptions of stable space and time while revealing the evolving possibilities of perception.
Part 3 Internality: Reconstructing Narrative
The third section features works by Raúl Rueda, Grapebattleships, Liu Zifeng, Eamon Luo and Xiang Ziqi. Shifting the focus inward, this section explores the multiple possibilities of inner experience through the reconstruction of narrative. Employing diverse narrative strategies—including uncanny images, collaborative creation , embodied experience, symbolic expression, and cyclical narrative—the artists examine the complex relationships among emotion, memory, and identity within the inner mind. From uncanny visions generated through spatial displacement to the distinctive visual language emerging from collaborative practice; from the subtle emotions woven between body and fabric, to the inner sensations underlying spontaneous gestures, alongside the perpetually reconstructed self within cyclical narratives, these works transcend the boundaries of conventional representational expression through the reconstruction of narrative, forging visual languages that articulate the complexity of the individual’s inner world.
As the artists continually engage with their own lived experiences, they also reconnect with the shared emotional and existential dimensions of human life. The artworks thus become spaces of connection between the individual and the collective, revealing the rich and intricate psychological structures that underlie the human bodies.
As Giulio Carlo Argan argued, creation entails transcending the boundaries of established experience and discovering new possibilities through transformation. The artists in En Route III approach artistic practice as a process of continual becoming. By revisiting memory, engaging with the realities of the present, and delving into inner experience, they transform their works into open spaces that connect reality and fiction, technology and perception, and the individual to the world.
In this process, the artworks do not seek to offer definitive or closed-ended answers. Instead, they continuously generate new meanings through acts of viewing, communication, and living experience. En Route III invites viewers to embark on this ever-evolving journey, reconsidering the relationship between art and contemporary life through the fluid interplay of multiple dimensions.