Almost Transparent Blue: Curated by NING Wen
BONIAN SPACE is pleased to announce the group exhibition Almost Transparent Blue, on view from August 1 to August 22, 2026. Curated by Ning Wen, the exhibition will present more than thirty works newly created by eight young female artists: CHENG Xitong, HU Xinyue, LV Kangyou, Mitong WANG, WANG Qiqi, WANG Zichen, XU Faping, and ZHANG Wanyue.
In 1976, Japanese writer Ryū Murakami’s novel Almost Transparent Blue exposed the spiritual wounds of postwar Japanese youth. At the edge of U.S. military bases, young people immersed themselves in sensory excess, glimpsing a field of blue through the reflection of shattered glass — a blue transparent enough to reveal all forms of emptiness, yet heavy enough to carry the unplaceable confusion of an entire generation. In the novel, “transparency” does not signify pure clarity, but rather a paradoxical state: everything is visible, yet individuals remain separated by an impenetrable layer; desires expand endlessly, while no spiritual refuge can be found. Half a century later, has that blue faded away? Or has it taken on a new form, drifting through the spiritual landscape of Generation Z? Today’s young people no longer confront the ruins of war or the loss of identity in the same way, yet they seem suspended within another, subtler dilemma: sensory numbness caused by information overload, self-performance within social networks, uncertainty after the disappearance of fixed answers, and the anxiety of seeking individual expression within highly regulated social structures.
We see too much and express too much, yet often find ourselves trapped in the distance between “seeing everything” and “touching nothing.” The blue remains transparent — every fragment of life appears clearly before us, yet something always seems to stand between ourselves and genuine connection. This psychological state, suspended between clarity and confusion, forms the central theme of the exhibition. Bringing together eight female artists born in the 1990s and after the 2000s, the exhibition explores shared contemporary experiences through diverse media including painting, mixed-fiber works, and water-based collage. Rather than offering definitive answers, Almost Transparent Blue uses a literary and abstract “blue” as a spiritual container, holding emotions of uncertainty, contradiction, confusion, and self-reconciliation, allowing every form of youthful struggle to find a transparent space for contemplation.
The blue in Ryū Murakami’s novel is the darkened glass left behind after the burning intensity of postwar youth; the blue created by the eight emerging artists in this exhibition becomes the spiritual tone of the information age. Across these works emerges a shared visual quality: a translucent, mist-like barrier. This layer of blue exists between artist, image, and viewer, functioning simultaneously as a visual language and a reflection of a generation’s inner landscape. It is transparent because digital media places every emotion and dilemma openly before us, leaving nowhere to hide; it is infinite because the uncertainty of a generation has no singular answer. Self-acceptance, struggle, intensity, and ease are all valid forms of existence.
Across half a century, this blue has transformed from the hopeless backdrop of postwar ruins into a spiritual space capable of holding the self. Between order and freedom, desire and restraint, persistence and transformation, these eight young artists carve out countless openings for breath. The watercolor flowing between grids, the dyes permeating fabric, and the ink spreading across paper are all forms of escape created by young people within a world of constraints. There is no need to urgently dispel the fog before us or force ourselves to escape the uncertainties of the present. Instead, we may simply gaze into this suspended transparent blue. As we observe the layers of color spreading endlessly across the canvas, we may come to understand that confusion, tension, and searching are all inherent landscapes of youth. They will eventually transform into the strength that carries us through the storm, guiding us toward our own depths within the vast spiritual wilderness.
Almost Transparent Blue — we will eventually cross this storm.