Artificial Paradise: ¥ouada

Ota Fine Arts Shanghai is pleased to present Artificial Paradise, the second solo exhibition by Chinese artist ¥ouada (b. 1987, Fujian) with the gallery, and his first presentation at the Shanghai space. The exhibition is an extension of the artist’s earlier online viewing room Artificial Nature. Through his ongoing painting practice, ¥ouada continues to explore the relationship between the “natural” and the “constructed”. Having lived in Hangzhou for many years, the artist has gradually come to perceive nature as suspended between the real and the carefully beautified — a condition in which the “natural” bears traces of arrangement, editing, and reconstruction.

In this exhibition, zebras, alpacas, cows, and dogs appear within highly saturated, candy-coloured spaces, where they appear at once familiar and visibly fabricated. Rather than pointing to nature itself, these animals become constructed landscapes shaped through filtered imagery and an accumulated visual experience.

Within these constructed landscapes, the notion of “paradise” is continuously loosened and rewritten. Beneath the seemingly lighthearted and playful surfaces, subtle traces of unease, desire, and absurdity emerge, causing the viewer to drift between pleasure and distortion. Under these polished and carefully constructed facades, “paradise” does not appear as a pure utopian ideal, but gradually reveals its ambiguity and contradictions as something that is artificially produced.

For this exhibition, the artist created new interventions in the gallery’s display windows. The three windows function as independent fragments, loosely corresponding to the structure of “heaven earth and human”. Images and materials are constantly rearranged and activated within them, keeping the space in a state of subtle transformation. Extending towards the street, the windows draw the viewer into the perceptual world of Artificial Paradise.

The gallery will present a limited-edition artist merchandise box by ¥ouada. Inspired by the artist’s earlier experimental necklace installations, the project incorporates elements such as beer cans, oversized gold chains, rings, and cigarette packs — motifs strongly associated with his visual language — transforming them into everyday objects situated somewhere between accessories, sculptures, and images.