Leah Ki Ye Zheng: “I-Ching / Machine” at Mendes Wood DM, New York: Art Exhibition Review

Have your eyes ever landed on a person, or a thing, or a scene, and something… something felt like an illumination? Like an explanation? Like an answer, or at least a picture of an answer and a description of where to find it, a map that refused to actually explain itself but was obvious in its presence? A sense of alignment, suddenly permeating a moment… just a moment, or just for however long that you’re looking.

Though, its persistence really isn’t dependent on your looking, as though the looking somehow manifested the explanation, the answer, that you’re gazing upon. It asserted itself, the kind of synchronicity that might be driven by God if you believe in such a thing but in any case suggests… some kind of cohesion. Some kind of unity. Some kind of placement.

It’s not an orchestration, or a predestination, but it’s a moment of clarity. Existential and experiential lucidity that suddenly makes itself known, and you’re left occupied as much by the surprise of it all as trying to apply what you’re feeling, the clarity, to what you’re experiencing and about to experience and have experienced…. though the answers in front of you have their own terms. They’re reassuring in taking control out of your own hands. Existentially, did you ever have it? Did you ever set up the universe, at least as far as the concept unfurls itself in front of you in each passing moment? Sometimes.

We’re lurching for this kind of salvation in every step, piecing together the alignment of the tiled floor in front of us, in front of me, with the surrounding walls and whatever we must imagine lies beyond them…. support after support, all the way down and as far as the eye can see.

We have to imagine it, levels and layers beneath and beyond this one, all together allowing for the intangible circulation of our drifting ambitions, presences, steps, placements, and movements. Our familiar, regular paths feed back into themselves.

And in the paintings by Leah Ki Ye Zheng in a recent (now concluded) exhibition in New York City at Mendes Wood DM, an art gallery, the sought after promise of a step and level after this one becomes a feeling of permeating salvation.

Much of the imagery in the paintings is sourced from the I Ching, specifically the hexagram patterns part of its system of finding guidance. I am only aware of the practiced traditions rather than familiar in detail with its specifics, though Zheng’s paintings felt nonetheless personal and lasting.

In each painting that featured the imagery, the line patterns filled the surface, but I felt as though they were sitting peacefully and serenely, rather than pushing outwards. The effect was something like it must be if a series of waves on the surface of the ocean or some other body of water were to suddenly stop. The paintings were like incalculable, permeating power that softly waited to meet you, resting in place.

The imagery also felt very self-contained. One of the first notes I made was about a feeling of “circulation” that I picked up on in the paintings, and it’s truly an assuring, supportive feeling. The paintings are somehow explanatory, departing from straightforward, rhetorical, verbal explanations and offering an emotional one, plotting some kind of series of connections that, whether it uplifts, mourns, or promises, is welcome. Zheng’s aesthetically atmospheric, billowing paintings offer expressive depth in which these visual formations are embedded.

I think what I feel in these paintings is truly that I don’t have to go anywhere at all. It’s all here, instead. They’re paintings that sit, that rest, all with comforting, far-reaching, encompassing stature. There is no face, both literally speaking and in terms of the impression of a singular, individual presence, but the art met me with the brusque directness of someone telling a story all the same. I’m back to standing in a spiritual shop, wondering, acutely aware of the breadth of what I don’t know, and content with that, though hoping that I can learn.

This exhibition is already closed, but I’m happy to post this article about it nonetheless. You can read more about it from the gallery’s website at this link.

Featured image: Leah Ki Ye Zheng: “I-Ching / Machine” (installation view), Mendes Wood DM, New York, Jan. 17 – March 1, 2025. Image by Dheurle Photography. Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brussels, Paris, New York.