Tseng Chien-Ying 水仙 Osmosis, 2026

In Osmosis, Tseng Chien-Ying presents two young male figures across a diptych, painted in ink and color on paper with mineral pigments. Each figure wears a bathing suit and is set against a fluid, vegetal background of blues and greens. The title refers to the passage of liquid through a membrane, a process echoed in the painting through the suggestion of water and the porosity of skin. The figures appear partly immersed, their flesh crossed by faint blue lines that evoke watermarks.

Unlike the frontal, icon-like figures in other works by Tseng, these bodies are shown in more intimate poses. Their rounded forms, outlined musculature, and stylized facial features still recall the artist’s interest in East Asian painting traditions and Buddhist visual language, yet here they are brought into contact with contemporary images of leisure, queer desire, and self-presentation. The diptych format creates a subtle exchange between the two bodies, suggesting permeability and attraction.

Working across ink and gouache on paper, as well as ceramic sculpture, Tseng Chien-Ying brings traditional East Asian materials and visual languages into dialogue with contemporary questions of the body, spirituality, and social tension. Drawing on historical techniques from across Asia, especially baimiao — line drawing without shading — and jiaocaihua, literally “glue-colour painting,” he places present-day subjects within forms that carry the weight of older artistic and religious traditions.