KILLION HUANG : REFLECTIONS

EDJI Gallery is pleased to present Reflections, a solo exhibition of new works by Chinese artist Killion Huang. This will be Huang’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, featuring a series of paintings produced during a period of quiet introspection and personal evolution in 2024.

Killion Huang’s work explores the intersections of identity, self-perception, and queer experience through personal, intimate moments of everyday life. His new series of paintings navigates the boundaries between seeing and being seen, inviting viewers into a delicate dialogue between self-reflection and the outward gaze. These works mark a significant development in Huang’s practice, coinciding with a move to a new studio space, where newfound solitude and quiet introspection allowed the artist to delve deeper into his own identity and representation.

Through this new body of work, Huang emphasizes the mirror not simply as a reflective surface, but as a portal into the complexities of selfhood. His figures are depicted in moments of solitude, captured within the quiet rituals of daily life—whether dressing in their bedrooms, contemplating urban landscapes, or gazing into the eyes of another. Each scene carries a tangible tension, questioning the boundaries of gender, desire, and how queerness is perceived both in private and public spaces.

The influence of art historical traditions permeates Huang’s approach, with echoes of modernist figurative painters informing his representation of the human form. Yet, Huang’s sensitivity to queer subjectivity and the multifaceted nature of identity places his work firmly in a contemporary dialogue. Through warm, tender brushstrokes and a palette of vibrant reds and cool shadows, Huang evokes both the comfort and complexity of self-exploration, suggesting that the moments we often hide from the world are the ones most deserving of love.

In Reflections, Huang’s compositions are at once introspective and expansive. Physical spaces—bedrooms, windows, mirrors—serve as thresholds that blur the lines between internal and external realities, creating layers of meaning around identity that are never fully resolved. The figures in his works appear calm, yet they are often caught between stillness and action, inhabiting moments of quiet contemplation while questioning how they are perceived by the world around them.

This exhibition asks viewers to consider: Who are we when no one is watching? For queer individuals, the mirror becomes more than just a tool of self-perception; it is a gateway through which different aspects of identity are explored and reconciled. In an age dominated by curated images and self-presentation, Huang’s paintings offer a rare glimpse into the moments of vulnerability that define us.