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Exhibitons / Festivals:
21 Nov 2024 - 21 Jan 2025
Collective exhibition with Aurelie Jourdain, Dominique Pouzol, Laetitia L’Heureux, Lala, Lou Lombard, Marie-Cecile Marques, Sandrine Loquet, Tessa Kugel, Victor Hamonic.
“Vrrraimant! is the drawing festival organized by the Métaxu. On November 1, 2 and 3, 2024, 10 designers came to the gallery and to the Place du Globe, to produce for 3 days without restraint, surrounded by spectators.
For these artists who already have a professional background, it is often a first experience of drawing in public, but also a step aside in their practice where the intensity of the situation and the effect of the collective push them to go beyond the usual comfort of the studio.
The exhibition shows selected drawings that summon spontaneous creative energy, the speed of bringing an idea to the medium, the intelligence of the collective game, sometimes the irreverence shown to the medium. All the drawings were born during a weekend, with the particularities of each artist, their techniques, their ease in tracing the sheet, their desire to talk about the world. The métaxu offers a dive into this space-time as a testimony to a possible freedom where artists and audiences coexist in the heart of the city.”
*Text and Photos by METAXU
1, 2, 3 Nov 2024
“VRRRAIMANT! is the LIVING contemporary drawing festival.
10 designers present all weekend radiate the Place du Globe, on all surfaces with all media. A unique weekend of collective improvisation at the crossroads of graphic art, music and performance. Every evening, concerts question drawing and music.”
At this festival, I created a participatory work. With my "Dream Drawing" series printed on many A4 parper, the visitors were allowed to cut and paste them on a large banner paper. Then I connected all the different parts that everyone had pasted with drawings to make a whole scene.
I also collaborated with another drawer Marie-Cecile Marques and a Tunisian band Orchestre Nour at the festival to improvise a drawing in the square.
27 Sep - 8 Nov 2024
Solo exhibition
In Oriental cultures, the circle symbolizes harmony, unity, and balance. This symbolism is frequently illustrated through the duality of yin and yang, as represented by the interplay of black and white. Additionally, the circle invokes concepts of eternity, completeness, and the cyclical nature of life, thereby reflecting the interconnectedness of all things.
For Run, the circle serves as both a starting point and a structural element in her work. Sometimes integral, it can enclose or restrict, guiding her playful and joyful drawings. This beginning establishes boundaries that foster freedom from realistic forms, allowing for a playful exploration of gravity and depth. Run's style exudes joy and apparent naivety, yet her depictions of figures and landscapes reflect deep emotional expression. Through intimate portrayals of the body and everyday life, she enables imagination to flow through shapes, while adhering to her carefully crafted internal rules of composition.
Echoing Picasso's idea of "unlearning," Run strips away the unnecessary, achieving a seamless simplicity. Her circles and surrounding lines create a stage for emotions—sometimes contained; sometimes breaking free. Her drawings invite viewers into a world of wonder, curiosity, and joy, but also of sadness and fear, fostering connections with their inner world.
Having grown up and studied fine arts from an early age in China and later in France, Run Jiang’s use of the circle may be her way of finding unity within the traditions she was raised with, while simultaneously outgrowing the rules and reshaping them to carve out her own space in the world. In turn, the artist invites viewers to engage with her work, prompting the question: why (not) always start with a circle?
*Text by Charlotte Patoux
6 Jun - 29 Jun 2024
Solo exhibition
Run Jiang has been developing a set of works originating from intimate experiences, focusing on themes such as body and emotions, dreams, domestic life and, more recently, the experience of being a mother, exploring areas of drawing, textiles, sculpture and, above all, painting .
With unreserved honesty in confronting the intensity and, often, naivety of her emotions, Jiang seems to seek, through a schematic approach, to make clear what underlies her relationships with the world and the people closest to her, and even with herself, creating situations and scenarios, lived or fictional, in order to enhance a restructuring transformation.
In this new series of paintings presented here, you have the feeling of entering a world that is a little smaller, but, at the same time, a little bigger, as you imagine a child's world to be. The broad gestures, full canvases and rich palette suggest that there is a whirlwind of things happening, one after the other, and there is a certain urgency to feel and eagerness to understand. A being is born, grows and transforms every moment. Out of pure necessity, the mother becomes a daughter, the woman becomes a child. Not completely. Not through metamorphosis, but through openness and permeability. Daughter and child, wife and mother, inescapable in the fabric of love.
*Text by MingYu Wu
29 Jun - 15 Jul 2023
Collective exhibition with André Almeida e Sousa, Luis Almeida, Constança Arouca, Francisca Carvalho, Run Jiang, Sandrine Llouquet, Pedro Proença, Pierre Delalande.
"In Kafka’s “The Burrow,” the protagonist is perpetually developing, designing, and redesigning his underground neighborhoods, driven by a sense of dissatisfaction and anxiety about his current living space. The actions of the character in this work, often considered an allegory of writing, are largely related to individual artistic practices and invite us to understand the pieces presented here from a new angle.
Within the walls of the Toulon space, we are invited to follow the rhythm and trajectory that compose the achievements of André Almeida e Sousa, Francisca Carvalho, Sandrine Llouquet, Constança Arouca, Luis Almeida, Run Jiang, Pedro Proença aka Pierre Delalande and the founder of metaxu Benoit Bottex, like a path traced by hand on an invisible map. Like the rhizome, this path - this tunnel - has neither beginning nor end; it is a constantly expanding network, with possibilities of growth and connection."
*Text by METAXU
4 Apr - 4 Jun 2023
Collective exhibition with Luís Almeida, Rodrigo Canhão.
14 Jan - 3 Apr 2023
Collective exhibition with Luís Almeida, Rodrigo Canhão.
12 Fev - 1 May 2022
Collective exhibition with Luís Almeida, Luís Silveirinha, Rodrigo Canhão.
Installation 《Day and Night》
"Day and Night" is an installation featured in the "Various Positions" exhibition at BAG. It consists of two parts: the "Day" part at the end of the exhibition on the second floor, and the "Night" part in the room at the end of the corridor.
The "Day" section consists of three transparent fabrics and many collages and objects wrapped in plastic hanging from them: Chinese spaghetti wrappers, car sales and real estate advertisements, supermarket catalogs, half-torn photographs found on the street, paintings and photos of the my daughter, attraction tickets, mail documents, monthly diaries, medical receipts, pill boxes and bottles...
Without logic and reason, nor order and priority, just like people and events that we encounter one after the other during the day. They haunt our heads.
As we walk through the twists and turns similar to the shape of a conscious "Day" brain, we arrive at an unconscious red night that induces us into a trance. There are 16 drawings here on the wall, which are the stories of my night dreams.
I started writing down my drawings when I was young. As for drawing them, it only happened later – a time when I regularly dreamed about important people, with intense feelings, to the point that sometimes I had the impression that it was reality. This made me want to draw them.
The "Day" part is full of all kinds of information, it is evidence of small fragments of my life. These "evidences" are the product of consciousness, but they are piled up; the "Night" part is the opposite, although they are the product of the "unconscious", they are complete and uniform stories that have been summarized and retold by consciousness.
29 Jan - 20 Fev 2022
Solo exhibition
Run Jiang começou a desenhar sonhos em 2012. Os seus sonhos. Um registo sistemático, feito em continuo e que se desenvolve a par dos outros projectos a que se dedica. Mais do que a atracção pela bizarria dos enredos do inconsciente move-a um impulso identitário de revelação do mundo interior, do exercício da memória, da capacidade de cristalizar dessa quase possível realidade alternativa pequenos segmentos em que a história individual também se constrói.
Na presente exposição que reúne uma vintena de trabalhos, o título escolhido -
O que me quero dizer - reforça essa vontade da artista levar a cabo uma pesquisa pessoal que dá voz a si própria nesse processo de autoconhecimento. Realiza cerca de dez imagens por ano e procura ser o mais fiel possível aos elementos de que se recorda ao acordar. Por vezes, simula a postura do dormir fazendo desse gesto performativo íntimo a espoleta de recuperação dos salvados da noite.
As cenas trazem à tona personagens que lhe são familiares: o marido, os pais, os avós, os amigos e colegas, o gato. E a par deles, Run Jiang representa-se também, nesse diálogo de estar fora e dentro do sonho em simultâneo. Porque esta é a sua perspetiva.
Mas mais do que dos personagens, recorda-se das acções, de momentos muito precisos - como na imagem da mão ferida por um pionés - ou situações em curso - quando noutra uma rapariga que se levanta e caminha até à porta. Aqui a ideia desse tempo fluido transmite-se multiplicando a figura em posições diferentes, concentrando-se a narrativa numa só imagem.
Desenha com lápis de carvão e sempre com o mesmo tipo de papel. Recentemente trocou o traço expressivo do riscador utilizado sem auxiliares, pela certitude do risco amparado pela régua. E o papel escolhido passou também a ser mais denso.
O caracter miniatural, quase pueril, com que representa a figura humana, articula-se com a marcação constante de um espaço arquitectónico visto como esboço. É fundamental para situar os eventos mesmo que por vezes dentro e fora se confundam. Como nos sonhos.
Desenha o que se lembra, como se lembra. Por vezes surgem lugares que lhe são familiares: a casa dos pais, a sua casa, a universidade. Outras, sítios anónimos que se formalizam com a estranheza do que a memoria cristaliza. Numa dessas imagens, dominada pelo traçado de uma estrutura vazada, apresenta-se, o que parece ser um jogo entre homens e mulheres, enformado por um dispositivo de paredes e mesas onde se podem ver ovos e espermatozoides. E o publico assiste. "Junto-me às pessoas para ver o espectáculo. Os homens dançam virados para espermatozoides, e as mulheres têm à frente ovos de galinha".
O que para o espectador serão sempre histórias com as quais se pode ou não identificar, para a artista são lembranças reais dos sonhos que teve e reproduz, ancorando o desenho numa breve escrita que a auxiliam a relembrar o sonho cativo. E em títulos numéricos que indexam a memoria e a imagem no filão de uma cronologia.
*Text by Ana Ruivo
1 Jan - 4 Jun 2021
Collective exhibition with Luís Almeida, Rodrigo Canhão.
10 Jan - 17 Jan 2020
Solo exhibition
Entrails of some sort connect the works of Run Jiang. An umbilical cord. Or bowels. The DNA repeats itself from one work to another, like every rasp of spit. This DNA is made up of the workings of her body and the reflections of her selves.
With what appears to be quicksilver ease, Jiang creates profound images of moments of her body and of her selves. She gives birth, she has her period, she looks in the mirror, she makes herself pretty, sometimes she disappears, she strokes the cat, she holds her child, she cries, she pisses, she shits, she comes, she is tired, she dreams, she loves. And so on. There is little difference between the monumental and the mundane moments. One day follows another as a woman relates to the world around her with all her senses, makes choices, feels it with her myriad of emotions, and is present with all her multiple selves. Ever-changing. It is always she who looks in the mirror, every day and every time, but her face changes, as do parts of her person, and some days she might not even recognise herself, or even feel like herself, but, even in these moments, Jiang’s starting point is her physicality.
Jiang’s physicality and sensuality are manifest in her works not only in what she represents, but also in her choice of colours, in her gestural spontaneity. Things are messy. Food goes bad, clothes get dirty, cats and babies poo, eyes go missing, things are misplaced and lost. And new things appear in their place, because what is also messy about the body and the self is desire, that cannot be controlled, and bubbles up, sometimes in the most banal of places, creating a rich dichotomy of Jiang’s lived experience in the present and of her wild interior world.
As an artist, one of the ways in which Jiang deals with this dichotomy is, of course, through her work, which itself stands in some opposition to Jiang’s everyday life. Time is carved out for oneself, sometimes trenchantly insisted upon, or carefully negotiated, or very collaboratively balanced. Space and time in which Jiang can sit with her interior life, which is nourished by the exterior one, but which is entirely her own. There is freedom in the act of creation, but also, and equally forcefully, in allowing this interior life to exist, as it is. Jiang is a mother, a lover, a wife, a partner, an artist, herself. Her selves weave into one another. Some she shares with others, some are entirely her own, and the excitement of Jiang’s work lies in this coming together of shared and private selves, and in the wild possibilities that this can bring, as well as in the knowing that some private selves may never be revealed to anyone.
The excitement in Jiang’s work also seems to come from the excitement that the artist herself appears to feel when facing the world, this manifested through delight, boldness, wonder, curiosity, intrigue, seduction, intimacy, love, as well as the welcoming of the full spectrum of emotions, including sadness, anger, fear, confusion. Once again, ever-changing.
Bodies and selves are ever-changing and as an artist Jiang is eager to record and to explore the workings of her body and of her selves as they are and as they change, regardless of whether these moments are beautiful or not. In fact, part of the beauty of Jiang’s work lies in the fact that she isn’t afraid to look at these moments with eyes wide open and with all her other senses, and she isn’t afraid to show them to us. The question is whether we can match her eyes-wide-open courage. Whether we can hold her gaze.
*Text by Eva Oddo
27 Sep - 8 Nov 2019
On the occasion of the Italian translation of Horto de Incêndio, edited by Federico Bertolazzi.
Collective exhibition with Alexandre Conefrey, Ana João Romana, Ana Natividade, André Almeida e Sousa, Carlos Corais, Carlos Nogueira, Constança Arouca, Francisca Carvalho, Frederico Pratas, Gonçalo Beja da Costa, Inês Soares, João Cochofel, João Decq, João Jacinto, João Queiroz, Luís Almeida, Luís Manuel Gaspar, Luís Silveirinha, Maria Joana Santos, Mariana Dias Coutinho, Marta Amaral, Musa paradisiaca, Paulo Brighenti, Pedro Sousa Vieira, Run Jiang, Susana Amaral, Tomás Cunha Ferreira
14 Sep - 6 Oct 2017
Duo exhibition with Luís Almeida.
27 Jun - 1 Aug 2017
Collective exhibition with the residents of Mart Art Residency.
20 Jun - 9 Jul 2017
Collective exhibition with the residents of Mart Art Residency.
21 Jan - 19 Mar 2017
Duo exhibition with Luís Almeida.
18 May - 4 Jun 2016
Collective exhibition with the residents of Mart Art Residency.
Installation 《Come in, please》
Due to the appartment-like nature of the exhibition venue, I decided to simply arrange my space as a bedroom. In addition to the basic furnitures, there is a huge mirror facing the door diagonally, so that people passing by can peek into the room through the mirror.
The three walls of the room are covered with my paintings.
During the opening ceremony, I lay on the bed three times. When I lie in the room, people hesitated to come in. Even if they know that this is an exhibition area, the private situation caused by the smallness of the room will make them ashamed to enter. And when I am not in the room, some people would even lie in the bed to rest.
Like the paintings I hang in the room, I am very interested in the exploration and expression of privacy. The whole room seems to be a part of my body that I have opened up and invite others to watch. The whole room is also dialoguing with the audience, like my substitute. Compared with the bright and smooth, I prefer those awkward and tense moments. It seems that only those details are unforgettable and real.
1 Jul - 31 Jul 2015
Collective exhibition with the residents of Mart Art Residency.
Performance 《Bride's love eternal wind》
In Madeiros e Almeida House-MuseumFondation, an ola villa converted into a museum, I wore a wedding dress and isolated myself as if in anther time and space that did not belong to the house or the opening ceremony, without any communication with anyone.
A wedding dress is a kind of clothing that is only worn at a specific time and occasion. Whether it is wearing dress in such an old house or at the opening ceremony of a contemporary art exhibition, it makes the scene very surreal. At the same time, it also gives this venue (place) and the ceremony (time) a new function. In the following week, I sat in different places in the museum for an hour per day. Visitors saw a bride sitting on the bed as soon as they turn into one room. Since this museum is also a house, a private, subtle but very abrupt feeling arises between us.
- 2015
Collective project with the residents of Mart Art Residency.