Alchemyverse

Project Space

Nunu Fine Art New York is pleased to present Networks of Kisses, an exhibition by contemporary art collective Alchemyverse. The exhibition inaugurates our Project Space: Asian Voices, a new initiative that serves as a dedicated platform in New York City to showcase and elevate experimental artistic expressions from Asia and the Asian diaspora.

Alchemyverse was founded by artists Bicheng Liang and Yixuan Shao (Bicheng Liang, b.1994, China and Yixuan Shao, b.1996, China) in New York. The duo began their collaboration at the MFA program at Columbia University in 2020. Liang and Shao combine their respective knowledge bases and skills in printmaking and sound studies, with intensive field research to form their collaborative practice. Their collective name stands for the alchemy-like process of the elements that make up the world becoming entangled, reconstructed, and transformed by each other in the face of undifferentiated technologization and environmental catastrophe. Freeing themselves of any restrictions of medium, discipline, or geography, it is through continuous transgressions and permeations of these boundaries that they create works of installation, printmaking, sound, ceramics, performance, and publication.

In Networks of Kisses the artist duo reenacts their scale-shifting studio in the gallery space, as a reflection on their field research in different locales where natural forces have shaped and changed human perceptions about time, materiality, and ultimately, life itself. Their research-based installation feature handmade prints, copper plate drawings, and photographs taken by the artists, and a multisensory field of sound and haptics, unfolding on a raised platform in the center.

Bicheng Liang received his BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China. Yixuan Shao received her BA from University of California, San Diego. Their recent selected solo and group exhibitions include Below Grand, New York; International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York; Praise Shadows Gallery, Massachusetts; Asia Art Archive in America, New York; The Bishop Museum, Hawai’i; Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University, New York, among others. Residencies include LMCC Governors Island, New York; Desert 23°S, La Wayaka Current, Chile; AAA-A Zine Residency, Brooklyn; the Rabbit Island Residency, Lake Superior, Michigan; and the Ground Floor Artist Residency at ISCP, New York.