Chez Moi

by SWANFALL GALLERY

VENUE

Gallery 46, 46 Ashfield St, London E1 2AJ

DATES

1 - 10 May 2024

11:00 - 18:00

PRIVATE VIEW

1 May 18:00 - 21:30

RSVP HERE

INTRODUCTION

SWANFALL GALLERY is pleased to present the group exhibition Chez Moi from 1 - 10 May 2025 at Gallery 46

"The Master said, 'Zilu has reached the hall, but has not yet entered the inner chamber.'"

 - Confucius: The Analects, translated by D.C. Lau

In classical Chinese philosophy, “ascending the hall” (升堂) symbolises the

initial mastery of a discipline, while “entering the inner chamber” (入室) signifies reaching a state of complete enlightenment - a process of progression  from mere perception to profound understanding. Reflecting this progression, the exhibition brings together works by artists represented by SWANFALL GALLERY, selected emerging voices, and significant pieces on loan from private collections. The Artworks are selected to articulate a progression from form to concept - a trajectory from hall to chamber

Departing from the neutrality of the white cube, Chez Moi is purposefully staged at Gallery 46. Once a private residence, the space has been converted into a contemporary art venue, retaining much of its original domestic architecture and spatial divisions. This environment establishes a discursive space in which the affective and experiential dimensions of artistic expression intersect with lived reality

Titled Chez Moi (登堂入室), the exhibition emphasises the emotional and lived experiences that underpin artistic creation. The notion of home, a space shaped by routine, intimacy, and personal memory, becomes both the subject and the setting. By placing artworks within familiar, lived-in environments, the exhibition fosters a continuous viewing pathway, creating an intimate yet confrontational viewing experience

Chez Moi proposes a way of seeing grounded in proximity, sensitivity, and attention. It traces a passage through the thresholds between the mundane and the symbolic, the visible and the felt. This is a movement through space, also a process of introspection: In witnessing the lives and textures of others, we return, with greater intimacy, to the contours of ourselves

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”- E.E. Cummings

When we reflect on what renders a work of art meaningful, we look not to categorical definitions or fixed criteria, but to its capacity to affect - to unsettle, arrest, and endure. A work becomes significant when it interrupts the rhythm of daily life, not through what it illustrates, but through what it provokes. Its relevance lies in the ability to awaken something latent in the viewer. It is within this liminal space - between affect and cognition - that a work asserts its presence. Its value does not lie in explanation, but in resonance - in the way it elicits a response beyond articulation. At its most essential, art is a form that grants presence to the inexpressible

Chez Moi unfolds as an inquiry into unvarnished reality - into forms of truth that are intimate, chaotic, tender, or unresolved. Rather than situating the works within the abstraction of a conventional gallery setting, the exhibition inhabits the domestic: the site of lived experience, where space is shaped by memory, conflict, affection, and desire

The domestic interior - specifically, the space of the home - offers a context shaped by intimacy rather than neutrality. In its repetitions and routines, its accumulated traces and textures, the home becomes a space where emotion unfolds without pretence

Behind closed doors lies the weight of human presence: solitude and companionship, ambiguity and rupture, desire and withdrawal, conflict and reconciliation, dependence and escape, promise and betrayal. It held the lingering unease, the unspoken shame, the sadness that came without warning, the hesitation before making a choice, or the discontent that followed fulfilment. It carried the intimacy once shared with another, and tug-of-war with oneself - all that remains unforgettable, the fear echoes within, the undisclosed desires and unspeakable truth

Here viewing is no longer a passive act, but a deliberate transgression - a gesture of shared intent between artists and curators. It is a permitted access, a fragile acceptance for intrusion, and a delicate, continuous negotiation of distance and desire, trust and trespass, boundary and belonging

In this context, the act of viewing becomes a conscious transgression - one shaped not by passive observation, but by mutual implication. It is a subtle c complicity, an invitation both artist and curators extend. It is a sanctioned closeness, a guarded acceptance of intrusion. It is a negotiation - delicate and unresolved - around proximity, trust, boundary, and recognition

We hope to offer a way of seeing - one that leads the viewer between the everyday and the artistic, between what is seen and what is felt. We are never simply looking at art, never merely observing others. In every act of looking, we are searching for a part of ourselves

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” 

- Anaïs Nin

- MIAO, Pandora Wang

Once Upon A Time (The Parlour)

Exhibiting Artist

Dien Berziga

James Lang

Marie-Therese Heublein

Mark Lawson Bell 

A Warm Gathering (The Living Room)

Exhibiting Artist

Christine Lee 

Dine With Me (The Dining Room)

Exhibiting Artist

Huang Wei/ Tommy Jayne

Good Morning (The Study)

Fergus Channon

Ashes to Ashes  (The Secret Chamber)

Anaïs Öst

Lucas Bullens

Tommy Jayne

Yiming Zhu

Shared Secrets (The Playroom)

Anaïs Öst

Cizzoe Yi Wang

Fernando M. Romero

Hu Zeqia

Mathijs Hunfeld

Qiu Jiahao

Ruiji Han 

Tan Miao

Tong Mo

Yuming Lu

Zhong Qian

Six Fold Cage (The Garden)

Ruiji Han

Work Song (The Garden)

Duan Yujie