Mysterious and sublime, Zhu Xinyu’s forest is a place without boundaries where we have a direct sense of the earth’s magnetism, yet the silence there makes us so uneasy that we don’t dare to penetrate it. Lost between shadows and glimmers of light, we have the impression that the strange and ethereal twilight passing through the trees is only a supernatural illusion. With his hypersensitive work and his interest in mystical ecology, Zhu Xinyu never deals with landscapes romantically, but rather symbolically.

If the forest is capable of evoking the relationship between shadows, light and the body, here it is also a place of reminiscence and of meditation. We must be attentive to this spiritual light, as it is vital to us. This dreamlike environment echoes our own fears, our doubts, our beliefs, and our inner sense of self.

Born in 1980 in Haicheng (province of Liaoming), Zhu Xinyu grew up at the peak of the economic boom and never directly experienced the events of the Cultural Revolution. His art is free from any social criticism, instead turning inwards towards the individual. His work promotes introspective thinking and brings out questions related to psychology and light.