OV presents a selection of work from a diverse selection of artists exploring a great variety of themes.

Christina Shmigel explores the physical forms of Chinese characters as a way for her to help understand the meanings encoded in their tangle of lines, dots and strokes. The installation of braised wire and fishing line sees the characters suspended in mid air – unattached to any linguistic meaning.

Su Chang applies a similar amount of craftsmanship and effort to his sculptures of everyday objects – mundane things such as planters complete with cracked tiles and dusty leaves made out of finely wrought copper.

Hu Yun explores form as well – taking things such as bicycles and merry-go-rounds adding on additional elements, which transport these objects into the realm of the absurd.

Bai Yiluo enters into a metaphysical realm, with a digital photo collages composed of the still, delicate bodies of dead flies in a meditation on calligraphy and Taoist concepts of existence.

Sun Jianwei’s work explores existentialism and religion, with a mature technique that bears echoes of both Chagall and neo expressionism.

Tang Dixin explores a similar state of mind with grey and threatening images of waves and buildings wrapped in a bluster of brushstrokes. What comes out of his work is a sense of cold alienation in a world where things are just not right.

Qian Rong also offers his own take on our mixed-up post-colonial condition with images of the Bund populated by a cast of characters from both Chinese an and western history.

Jin Jiangbo’s stunning black and white photographs invoke a similarly dystopic landscape with twisted metal and crumbling rock speaking to the post-recession realities of an an abandoned factory in New Zealand.

And finally, Chen Hangfeng makes a comment on industrialized agriculture with a video which uses free range chickens and Colonel Sanders to make a humorous comment on the evils of the factory farm