Into the Fern Glow 拜訪暉蕨之森
■ 地點 Venue ｜ 大河美術 RIVER ART GALLERY
大河美術很榮幸呈現群展《Into the Fern Glow|拜訪暉蕨之森》。本展首次與香港獨立策展人林志恒(Jims Lam)合作，展開跨域交流項目，邀請臺灣藝術家王筱璦與余政諺、香港藝術家陳惠立、韓幸霖與蟻穎琳，以及中國藝術家廖雯與劉欣然。共同迎接一種專屬於「東亞濕潤文明的離線狀態」:在瀰漫濕氣的緩慢夢境中重新感應，並於紛亂的時代裡， 回返一座清醒與恍惚之間的精神森林。
展覽起初從 Philip K. Dick《Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?》中的「電子羊」與劉慈欣《三體》中的「黑暗森林」出發，探問科技高速發展與 AI 時代下，人的精神寄託將何去何從，並試圖喚醒內心深處的原始之境。七位藝術家的出生地(原始森林)多位於東亞季風的高濕度氣候中:臺灣的山霧與島嶼濕氣、成都盆地的霧感、香港的回南天與漫長雨季， 皆關乎情緒記憶、五感與集體意識，長期滲透身體、城市與文化——濕潤而帶有微光的感知經驗;在城與自然邊界重疊的環境裡，發展出既敏感又疲憊、既壓抑卻仍保有韌性的視覺語彙。展題以生長於潮濕、陰影與林下微光中的蕨類植物，以及生活中處處可見的「暉」 光作為隱喻，前者指向面臨過度加速也仍如古文明般潛於體內的生命能量;後者則囊括日常中的雨後水氣、迷霧中的燈、深夜未滅的霓虹殘光或失眠之夜的螢幕藍光，以及我們自身韜光養晦的修養。
這座「暉蕨之森」中，余政諺將「閾限」視為當代人的日常處境。原本在儀式中短暫發生的過渡狀態，如今成為城市、資訊與消費系統中反覆經歷的精神迴圈，進一步指出真正的出口不在於離開迷宮，而是個體內部校準與精神考古。韓幸霖的展開式盒件繪畫則指向內在心理風景，《A Way of Flying》將情感轉換於陶瓷、容器與私密劇場之間，那些被收納、展開或半封閉的畫面，成為保存情緒、儀式與凝視的精神暗室，亦揭示作品核心—人在繁瑣中，依然對自由自在懷抱著渴望。
王筱璦以夢的三部曲辨識眼前的現實，在揭開偽裝與破綻後，讓虛實層疊覆寫，記憶、情緒與潛意識交織，如同一座內在花園。蟻穎琳將夢境帶回集體記憶，以香港動植物公園為景，將不同年代的水池意象和歷史事件匯於同一空間。來自柏林的美洲豹，魚人和觀眾在公園相會;時間在此並非線性前進，而是如潮濕空氣般滲透蔓延，將記憶溫柔安置，暈開 一處退隱的入口。
對陳惠立而言，泳池既是建築，也是慾望、身體與觀看的容器;展出作品將電影中出現的泳池場景作為逃離現實的出口，無論是刻意抹去主角的紀實手法，或是其獨特的轉化手法，皆在創造了水光朦朧、充滿想像空間的感知場域。廖雯的《墜夢》透過陶瓷義肢連結器與複合媒材，層疊出近似城市建材的身體結構;標題「Hypnic jerk」藉半夢半醒之際的身體抽動，呈現異狀可能是本能在高速運作的城市中，意識生命的方式。劉欣然則在羊皮紙上捕捉關係中的深層感受，將溫濕度與情緒推向更糾纏的層次，在微光中自然顯影。
《Into the Fern Glow|拜訪暉蕨之森》最終討論的並非末世想像，而是一種新時代來臨前的感知預演;「拜訪」也暗示了有意識的行動。大河美術邀請觀者離開過載的前台，以敞開而謙遜的姿態進入這座快被遺忘的原始蕨林。在暉光朦朧中安全地向內退隱，接受迷路的發生，喚醒夢的潛能，與不可見之豐盛相遇。
RIVER ART GALLERY is pleased to present the group exhibition “Into the Fern Glow”. Marking the gallery’s first collaboration with Hong Kong–based independent curator Jims Lam, the exhibition brings together Taiwanese artists Hsiao-Ai Wang and Cheng Yen Yu, Hong Kong artists Wai Lap Chan, Hilarie Hon, and Ngai Wing Lam Ant; as well as Chinese artists Liao Wen and Xinran Liu. Together, their works trace an “offline condition” specific to East Asian humid civilizational landscape: a state of renewed perception within a slow, moisture-laden dream, and a spiritual forest suspended between lucidity and reverie amid the turbulence of the present.
The exhibition emerged from a reflection on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick, and the dark forest from Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem”, exploring the man-made spiritual anchors that emerge in the wake of AI and technological change, as well as the primal realm capable of awakening latent instincts. The birthplaces of the seven artists are largely situated within the high-humidity climate of the East Asian monsoon: Taiwan’s mountain mist and insular moisture, the fog of the Chengdu Basin, and Hong Kong’s condensation season and prolonged rains. These conditions are bound to emotional memory, the senses, and collective consciousness, having long permeated the body, the city, and culture. Where urban and natural boundaries blur, a visual vocabulary emerges that is at once sensitive and exhausted, repressed yet resilient.
The title draws on ferns growing amid dampness, shadows, and dappled light beneath the forest canopy, alongside the “glow” of everyday life. The former evokes a life force that remains embedded within the body despite relentless acceleration, ancient and almost unconscious in its persistence. The latter encompasses the sheen of moisture after rain, lamps seen through mist, neon lingering late into the night, the blue light of screens during sleepless hours, and our own capacity to preserve inner light, cultivating it quietly while keeping it from view.
Within this “forest of fern glow,” Cheng Yen Yu regards liminality as a condition of contemporary existence. A transitional state that once occurred only temporarily within ritual has now become a recurring psychological loop, repeatedly experienced within the systems of the city, information, and consumption. This further suggests that the true way out lies not in escaping the labyrinth, but in an inward recalibration and a form of spiritual archaeology. Hilarie Hon’s box paintings, meanwhile, point toward the darker recesses of the inner self. In “A Way of Flying,” emotion moves between ceramic, container, and intimate theater; scenes that are stored, unfolded, or left partially enclosed become psychic chambers preserving emotion, ritual, and acts of looking. The works reveal an enduring human longing for freedom and ease, even amid the entanglements of everyday life.
Hsiao-Ai Wang turns to a trilogy of dreams to discern the reality before her. As disguises and fissures are revealed, the real and the unreal overwrite one another, intertwining memory, emotion, and the subconscious like an inner garden. Ngai Wing Lam Ant brings dreams back into collective memory. Taking the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens as her setting, she gathers images of ponds from different eras and historical events within a single space. A jaguar from Berlin, the fish-headed figures, and the viewers converge within the gardens. Here, time does not progress linearly, but seeps and spreads like humid air, gently resettling memory and opening a passage into retreat.
For Chan Wai Lap, the swimming pool is both an architectural structure and a vessel for desire, the body, and the act of looking. The exhibited works draw on cinematic swimming-pool scenes as portals of escape from reality. Whether through a documentary approach that deliberately erases the protagonists or through his distinctive processes of transformation, Chan creates hazy perceptual spaces suffused with refracted light and open to the imagination. Liao Wen’s “Hypnic Jerk” layers ceramic prosthetic connectors and mixed media into bodily structures reminiscent of urban building materials. Referring to the involuntary twitch that occurs at the threshold between sleep and wakefulness, the work suggests that anomaly may be instinct’s way of making the body aware of life within the high-speed city. Xinran Liu captures deeper sensations within relationships on parchment, pushing humidity, heat, and emotion into increasingly entangled layers that surface softly into visibility in the dim light.
“Into the Fern Glow” is not concerned with an apocalyptic imaginary, but with a rehearsal of perception before the arrival of a new era. The word “Into” also implies a conscious act of visiting. RIVER ART GALLERY invites viewers to step away from the overloaded foreground of contemporary life and enter this nearly forgotten primordial fern forest with openness and humility. In the hazy glow, one may retreat inward, accept the necessity of getting lost, awaken the potential of dreams, and encounter the abundance of the unseen.