蜂巢 | 艺术 研究项目 No.5

Hive | Art  Research Program No.5

阿弥壳

Shell of Infinity

策展人 | Curator:

夏子非 | Xia Zifei

艺术家 | Artist（按姓氏拼音顺序排列）：

曹舒怡、陈天逸、董孝驰、段建伟、李维伊、七户優、娜蒂莎·琼斯、宋琨、张铭轩、朱小禾

Cao Shuyi, Chen Tianyi, Dong Xiaochi, Duan Jianwei, Li Weiyi, Masaru Shichinohe, Natisa Jones, Song Kun, Zhang Mingxuan, Zhu Xiaohe

展览时间 | Exhibition Dates:

2026.5.20-2026.6.20

开幕时间 | Opening:

2026.5.20 16:00

地点 | Venue:

蜂巢 | 北京  Hive | Beijing

地址｜Address.

北京市酒仙桥路4号798艺术区E06

E06, 798 Art Zone, Chaoyang District, Beijing

Hive Contemporary Art Center is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition “Petrichor” by artist Xing Hao, opening on May 20, 2026, in Hive | Beijing Headquarters’ Exhibition Halls B and C. As the 63nd iteration of the Hive Becoming Project (HBP), the exhibition brings together nearly twenty recent paintings by the artist. There is a kind of quietly surreal sense of humor in Xing Hao’s paintings. With a light, witty touch, he turns his attention to the unnoticed incidents tucked away in the corners of everyday life — like the scent of soil before rain, or the tiny creatures that crawl to the surface in damp weather. They arrive quietly, almost imperceptibly, yet subtly unsettle the stillness of the world. The exhibition runs through June 20, 2026, curated by Chan Yu Ying.

“Petrichor” refers to the distinctive scent released when rain falls on dry soil. The smell rises from deep within the earth, but also from stone. During periods of drought, oils secreted by plants are absorbed into the ground; when the rain arrives, they are gradually released back into the air — carrying traces of rust and dampness. The loosened surface of the earth after rain, along with the insects, moss, and lingering marks that emerge with it, together form a world that lingers close to the ground. They are not the protagonists of any narrative, but rather the smallest units through which the everyday begins to shift — subtly and persistently affecting their surroundings in their own quiet ways.

Xing Hao’s paintings operate in much the same way: light, measured, and unfolding at their own quiet pace. A sense of lightness permeates every aspect of the work, from his choice of canvas to the materials he uses — colored pencils, crayons, and thin layers of oil paint that allow the raw texture of calico and linen to remain visible beneath the surface. Across the canvases drift organs, bones, insects, writhing lines, floating dots, and fragmented human forms. These elements are introduced into seemingly random structures, allowing the paintings to maintain a fragile balance between control and accident. Suspended in midair, they neither seek autonomy nor proclaim anything; they merely attempt to establish the faintest connection with what surrounds them. The “insect” here is not simply a biological motif. It also evokes the gradually alienated human subject gradually altered through violence — the minute traces left behind after being ground down by the pressure of an era. Rather than pointing toward any grand narrative, these images remain closer to murmurs and tremors beneath the surface. Flickering points of light and tangled visual fragments drift through the paintings like a ghostly circus quietly unfolding in the corners of the city.

Xing Hao’s paintings often emerge from his observation and re-editing of everyday life. Seemingly calm, ordinary, even slightly monotonous corners of the world, once filtered through his paintings, always acquire an additional layer — a subtle joke staged through acts of fabrication and displacement. His process resembles a precise operation: dissecting, collecting, sorting, placing, and recombining fragments of the everyday. What concerns him is not a solemn discussion of reality itself, but rather the faint instability embedded within daily life — the emotions, temperatures, and subtle connections concealed inside ordinary things.

This reworking of reality is also closely tied to his long-standing engagement with Zhiguai (志怪)， tales of the supernatural, and modern literature. Zhiguai is not merely about ghosts or strange occurrences, but a method of approaching reality indirectly. Reality itself is often thin and repetitive; through fiction and imagination, we overlay the everyday with a faint fantastical tint. These fabricated or “borrowed” forms ultimately become, in some sense, a quiet resistance against the forms of powerlessness embedded within reality itself.

These paintings do not attempt to tell a complete story. They are closer to scents gradually surfacing in the air, or traces of dampness spreading quietly through forgotten corners. They always begin hidden within the atmosphere — in moisture, shadows, and the low world near the ground — before slowly diffusing outward.