“The Task of Alchemy”, Pocono Zhao Yu’s solo exhibition at Arch Gallery, presents a subtle sense of time traveling. As the title of the exhibition alludes to, it is as if the smelting and mysterious deeds of some spiritual objects. Within the whisper that fluttering outside of time, this enormous task is under the invisible dome of time.

When the painting is really close to us, the first thing that appears to our eyes is this Le cimetière marin[1] written by Valéry in 1922. The curators Hu Yihang and Zhang Tingzhi, together with artist Guo Yujian, divided the exhibition “Dangerous Complicity” in the gallery into three chapters with words and symbols: imagination, a plateau, and a theatre.

Since then, I have tried to let daydream-like imagination seep into the picture, and those earlier, more symbolic images have also been naturally diluted. Perhaps, it is precisely because of the temperament that seems to be infiltrated by the picture and some image contents that are contrary to reality that cause the association like a dream.