Gene Gallery is delighted to announce the Dual Solo Exhibition “Ground Drilling”, featuring artists Chen Paian and Peter Rothmeier Ravn, curated by Yang Hongli, which is from March 8, 2025 to May 10, 2025.

The concept of “ground drilling” originates from artist Chen Paian’s daily conversations, metaphorically implying the existential predicament of modern individuals with a Sisyphean absurdity. Much like a drilling machine trapped in an endless rotation, the seemingly relentless forward motion conceals an insurmountable barrier beneath, leaving individuals ensnared in a perpetual cycle, gradually descending into a self-constructed psychological dilemma.

Chen Paian’s digital paintings take this contradiction as their central creative theme, skillfully extracting fragments from everyday life and layering them to construct a barrier that obscures life’s inherent fragility. The deliberately preserved smooth textures, combined with industrially produced images, collectively form a series of projections and illusions of desire. Blurred and symbolized debris erodes the subjectivity of life, while the chaotic room transforms into an invisible cage that confines the spirit. As mechanized tidying behaviors strip away the charm of daily existence, they ultimately point to the tension and rupture between the carefully curated façade of success in modern society and the collapse of its intrinsic values.

In contrast, artist Peter Rothmeier Ravn’s surreal theatre presents another allegory of the human psyche, embodied by a group of suit-clad figures. These figures might collapse to the ground, cling to table edges, or curl into fetal positions.  The fragile bodily postures create a dramatic opposition to the traditional symbols of male power they represent. The “suit,” a mythologized emblem of order, authority, and invulnerability, functions like a meticulously forged armor by modern civilization. Yet, at this moment, it is failing, exposing power symbols as mere material projections of psychological collapse. Through this elaborately orchestrated process of disenchantment, the ever-widening chasm between material appearances and the spiritual world is gradually unveiled.