“Ha ha!”
Meng Donglai
27th November 2025 – 10th January 2026
Opening 27th November, 18:00 – 20:30
“Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions.” — Alfred Jarry
Science, as we understand it, is the systematic study of the natural and social world that begins with observation, leads to patterns, and becomes common sense. Through experimentation and countless tests, it finally condenses into a clear theory, a perfect formula. Yet the world today seems ever less orderly, resting on layers of theory that feel intangible and hollow without the guidance of context and sanity.
Similarly, Meng Donglai’s world has no generalities – only particulars – each rendered with the impression of a dream. Her paintings unfold like chapters from a novel: absurd, empirical, and tender all at once, where the boundary between reality and the imaginary dissolves into a single hybrid persona: a dog-faced baboon, as seen in Alfred Jarry’s Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician.
The artist’s fascination with Jarry, a pioneering French writer best known for his scandalous play Ubu Roi and the invention of ‘pataphysics, “the science beyond metaphysics,” through a chance discovery: she encountered the book in a museum of curiosities filled with taxidermy animals and impossible specimens, not far from London Fields. Inspired by her summer in London this year and the novel’s fantastical plots, Meng conjures a central figure for her new series, Haha, taking its name from Bosse-de-Nage – the baboon who accompanies Dr. Faustroll through Jarry’s book. The baboon’s only utterance, “Ha ha,” is both laughter and echo – a sound that hovers between meaning and meaninglessness, commenting on the absurdity that prevails across eight imagined chapters.
Meng paints not the events of this story, but the diagrams of the illogical, equations that solve nothing, a novelistic universe where a baboon, a scientist, and a bureaucrat travel in a perforated boat miraculously capable of staying afloat. More importantly, she paints the psychic intervals between them – the pauses, the unease, the faint afterglow of a laugh that has already gone cold. Her images oscillate between cruelty and affection, farce and faith, distance and desire. In one work, a baboon is born from a shell like Botticelli’s Venus, greeted by angelic creatures who bring no revelation except irony. In another, two horses appear at a café frontier, trying to lick a croissant through a glass veil. Elsewhere, a UFO shines a beam of light, as if receiving a lost child back into a safe yard.
The word pataphysics mocked the modern obsession with reason. It reminds me of an ancient Eastern philosophy, or rather, a mode of being: the art of appearing naïve while seeing through everything. In Meng’s cosmology, punts, hot air balloons, sandcastles, and statues coexist with mythic animals and uncanny landscapes. The gestures of painting merge with gestures of play, erasing the boundary between art and non-art, between the solemn act of making and the leisure of daydreaming. Meng’s figures drift through a theatre of contradictions, standing in an in-between space where cause and effect collapse, and the most irrational premise becomes a rigorous proof.
For Meng, this absurd refrain becomes a way to speak through silence and a language that replaces explanation with wonder. She calls these paintings “immersive daydreams.” They do not depict the world but test its permeability. Each image asks whether what we encounter is external reality or a projection of our longing. The baboon’s wandering becomes a philosophy of escape, not from the world itself, but from the obligation to make sense of it.
There is humour here, but it is heavy with melancholy. The laughter of Haha, both a name and a sound, reverberates through the paintings as a rhythm of estrangement, a recognition that what cannot be understood might still be loved. Everything is particular, nothing is general. And in that unrepeatable strangeness, Meng Donglai’s world feels uncannily like our own – only more truthful, as it never pretends to be real.
Text by Yiren Shen
(Yiren Shen is an independent writer based in Oxford, United Kingdom)
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Meng Donglai ( born in 1994, China ) Currently living and working in the Netherlands.
Donglai’s practice explores the phenomenon of “immersive daydreaming,” examining the intricate relationship between lived experiences and the subconscious. Drawing inspiration from psychological states, literature, society, and subcultures, she constructs fictional realities through painting and installations in which emotions and thoughts unfold freely. Her figurative style juxtaposes innocent imagery with underlying unease and hidden rational logic, inviting viewers to engage their sensibilities and form connections that transcend the visible.
Solo show include:(upcoming) “Ha ha!”, Lychee One, London (UK) 2025; What A Windy Day!, KennaXu Gallery, Shenzhen(China) 2024; The Moon Slides Over the Sea, Willem Twee Kunstruimte, Den Bosch(Netherlands) 2024;Oh! My Dog!, Cha x Art, Amsterdam(Netherlands) 2022;The Baron In The Trees, Foundation B.A.D, Rotterdam(Netherlands) 2022;A Porn Writer, OAZO AIR, Amsterdam(Netherlands) 2021;Make Lemonade, AAIE Center, Rome(Italy) 2021;A Murder Case, Nieuw en Meer, Amsterdam(Netherlands) 2021;Four States, Funspace Gallery OnlineRoom, Rome(Italy)(Online) 2020;Midday Dreaming, WitteRook, Breda(Netherlands) 2020;Hairy Legs Shrine, Studio Kura, Fukuoka(Japan) 2019;Poetic Game, Palazzo Velli Expo, Rome(Italy) 2017;
Recent group shows include: Rolling Snowball 18, 2025, Powerlong Art Center, Xiamen, China; Summer School Show, 2025, Turps Gallery, London, UK; Three Thresholds, 2025, IM Gallery, Guangzhou, China; Zomer salon, 2024, Westerkadekunst, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Just tell me a story, 2024, Migrant Bird Space, Berlin, Germany; Magnifica, 2024, AAIE Center, Rome, Italy; A Touch, A Glance, 2024, Hexagon Gallery, Hong Kong, China (Hong Kong SAR); Abstracte Narratieve Vormen, 2024, Galerie Ecker, Breda, Netherlands;FLYFLYFLY, 2024, KennaXu Gallery, Shenzhen, China; 2024, 2024, Moosey Gallery, London, UK; Koortsdroom (Fever Dream), 2023, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands; A piece of angel cake, 2023, What Art Can Do, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
DIONYSUS, 2023, DAKE Art Museum, Chengdu, China; One day I’ll fly away, 2023, Galerie SANAA, Utrecht, Netherlands; Atari, 2023, No Man’s Art Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Venti Sussurranti, 2023, AAIE Center, Rome, Italy; Spring Musings & Muddy Feet, 2023, Galerie SANAA, Utrecht, Netherlands; Launch show of Curated By, 2023, Huis Vasari, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Draw the Line II – The Female Gaze, 2022, Wobby.club / Kunstpodium T, Tilburg, Netherlands; Pets and Animals, 2022, Kollection Kitsch (WORM), Rotterdam, Netherlands; Abitudine Artistica Ideologia Eccellente, 2022, AAIE Center, Rome, Italy; In a pig’s whisper, 2022, De Vishal, Haarlem, Netherlands; The Shadow Of The Void, 2022, AAIE Center, Rome, Italy; Crisis Kunst, 2022, Niffo Galerie, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Prospects 10th, 2022, Art Rotterdam / Mondriaan Fonds, Rotterdam, Netherlands; We are all guests #8, 2022, Foundation B.A.D, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Biennale di Todi, 2022, Tower Gallery by AAIE Center, Todi, Italy; Needles in the hay, 2021, The Curators Room, Amsterdam, Netherlands; With permission from the officer, 2021, PuntWG, Amsterdam, Netherlands;