Towards Zero

Ora-Ora is delighted to announce a vibrant new solo show by Beijing-based artist Huang Dan at its Tai Kwun gallery space. Opening on February 5, the title is Towards Zero, an allusion to the artist’s journey into the heart of minimalism. This is Ora-Ora’s first exhibition of its 20th anniversary year and coincides with the advent of the Year of the Horse.

The exhibition presents new paintings on xuan paper in ink and mineral pigment, focusing on recurring subjects of horses, rabbits, and pines. In Towards Zero, painting becomes a visceral, bodily rhythm. The ebb and flow of breath and emotion imprint a measured tempo onto the paper, paring image and narrative back to essentials—form, rhythm, and presence.

The horse returns as a central figure. For Huang’s brush, its form is akin to landscape: a body steady as a mountain, eyes as clear as water. Works in warm ochres and deep blacks evoke silent power, strength, and tender empathy without excess narrative.

Rabbits and pine trees act as counterpoints. White and black rabbits face opposite ways, offering mirrored profiles and alternate bearings. Pine paintings—long associated with resilience—compose upright harmonies, their vertical lines suggesting growth and calm resolve.

Huang gives equal weight to motif and to “the empty.” Negative space is not backdrop but the field where energy (“qi”) circulates and breathes. Colours gather into clear fields—black and white, deep blues, warm ochres—shifting attention from brushmark to shape and plane.

Working within a historically rich Chinese medium, Huang responds directly to contemporary experience. Her paintings are serene yet alert, attuned to emotional currents and to an underlying natural order. This is Huang Dan’s first solo show with Ora-Ora since When You Rise in 2022.