Sculpture
Painting / Drawing
Sculpture
Photography
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Other Arrangements I: Better Together + Siblings
Under The Sea Collection—The Blue
Hereditary
Mother’s Daughter
Cathedral glass, tin, copper, sound 20 × 20 × 10 cm Sound: 2 min
Oil on canvas 91 × 91 cm
Coloured pencil and cut paper on paper 280 × 200 cm
Digital print 30 × 42 × 1 cm
2025
2025
2022
2025
touyeye_yeyetou Mengwei Chen
mengzhuli_helen Mengzhu Li
meltemqp Meltem Quinlan
melissahillartist Melissa Hill
Mengwei Chen is a London-based artist whose practice draws on fading East Asian rituals and folk arts, particularly Chinese paper-cutting once associated with sorcery, afterlife beliefs and cosmology. Working across painting, installation, moving image and papercutting, Chen reimagines marginalised symbols through hybrid visual languages shaped by literature, horror cinema, anime and popular culture, exploring how talismanic imagery might be reactivated within contemporary practice. Hereditary revolves around death, ritual and magic, combining the language of traditional papercutting with the visual idiom of contemporary comics. Drawing on an imagined ancient Nanyue civilisation, Mengwei Chen invents a fictive folk paper-cutting system, presented as though it were a vanished tradition. The peeling, layering and concealment of paper generate multiple dimensions, keeping the pictorial narrative in a continual state of shifting and instability.
Meltem Quinlan is an artist whose practice explores the human figure, shifting landscapes and personal experience. Drawing on these diverse sources and working with layered oils and mixed media, Quinlan creates paintings that appear to take on a life of their own, drawing viewers into an unfolding visual journey. Her ability to adapt materials to subject ensures that her work remains fresh, dynamic and continually evolving. Inspired by Meltem Quinlan’s experiences as a diver, the work channels the quiet majesty of the underwater world, its fluidity, silence and infinite calm. Through layered hues of blue and green, the painting conjures the sensation of submersion, where the body feels enveloped by water and suspended in time. Organic forms drift across the canvas like coral, currents or memory, while textures imply movement without urgency, a slow interplay of light and shadow.
Mengzhu Li is a visual artist and photographer based between China and the UK. Working with photography, video, text, handmade books and installation, Li explores the personal and social identities of East Asian women, focusing on belonging, mother–daughter relationships and shifting gender dynamics. By situating individual stories within broader cultural contexts, Li seeks to reveal shared resonances and reflect on the responsibilities of artistic creation. Mother’s Daughter reflects on changing family dynamics after a father’s loss, where the bond between mother and daughter deepens in complexity. Traits associated with femininity emerge vividly, revealing the hidden dimensions of this bond. The work captures the fragility of motherhood and the imperfect pursuit of creating a perfect environment for her child, a reflection resonant with countless East Asian mother–daughter relationships.
Melissa Hill is a British artist who transitioned from a career in product and pattern design to contemporary art, where her work addresses themes of human rights and resilience. Her practice spans political wallpaper and stained glass, using layered colour, light and form to reflect on struggle and survival. Other Arrangements I: Better Together + Siblings is a collaboration between Melissa Hill and Becca Drake. Better Together consists of two stained-glass vases joined by a hinge, created in response to the divisive 2024 US presidential campaign. Drake’s companion poem Siblings was performed during Other Arrangements at the York Festival of Ideas in June 2025. The series reflects on collaboration as a gift, showing how sharing one idea can ignite creativity and positivity.
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