The Fountains of Enceladus

Qian Qian

30th April 2026 – 30th May 2026
Opening 30th Apri, 18:00 – 20:30

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The Fountain of Enceladus presents ten watercolor works on panel, extending and developing the artist’s concept of ecomythicism—a “practice-based cosmology” that emerges from her painting. In these works, she seeks to dissolve the boundaries between scientific imagery, natural systems and mythological structures, treating them as interpenetrating fields. Between the cosmic and the terrestrial, the living and the non-living, the visible and the invisible, there remain channels of continuous flow.

During the making of these works, Qian Qian underwent a shift in her living conditions, relocating from London to the Scottish countryside. Living outside of established social structures, everything had to be relearned. It was within this transition that she encountered NASA’s 2014 scientific report The Fountains of Enceladus: beneath the icy crust of this celestial body, subsurface oceans erupt through fissures, forming vast plumes in space—suggesting that life may emerge under extreme and unstable conditions.

“In the vast and unfathomable expanse of the galaxy, the possibility of life is likened to a fountain,” Qian Qian notes. “It is a feeling where romance and fear coexist—a moment when our understanding is challenged by the surroundings.” The artist places her own experience of migration alongside this discovery on a cosmic scale, and, through the naming of the works, subtly constructs an unfolding trajectory, guiding the viewer through an exploratory journey across the images. The “fountain” thus becomes a metaphor connecting the micro and the macro, pointing both to a questioning of the Anthropocene and to the open-ended potential of artistic creation.

As the third solo exhibition in this series at Lychee One, the works demonstrate a highly integrated visual language. Visual vocabularies drawn from astronomy, biology, and geology are dismantled and symbolically reconfigured—planetary atmospheres, neural networks, and genetic structures merge with bodies, plants, and non-sentient forms. These elements, as different sites where “transformation” takes place, permeate one another and generate tension.

Branches extend like nerve endings; geological forms echo skeletal cellular structures, while cosmic voids emerge within organic growth, forming an evolving and interconnected generative system. Forms remain in flux, and the human figure is no longer positioned as a central subject but becomes a medium, a vessel that carries narrative. Qian Qian’s engagement with contemporary consciousness studies informs these works, creating a methodological resonance with Surrealism—each shaped by the leading knowledge systems of their time, both probing the relationship between the known and the unknown.

As Carl Sagan once wrote, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.” In Qian Qian’s work, this idea finds a visual echo. What emerges is not a representation of a world already known, but a landscape of consciousness—unstable, generative, and not yet fully understood.

 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Qian Qian (b. 1990, China) is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and mother. She received her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2018. She currently lives and works in Moray, Scotland.

Selected Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions

Two-Person Exhibition

  • The Light Burns the Reality, Sixi Museum (2025)
  • In Her Landscape, Lychee One (2023)

Group Exhibitions

  • Another World, Frestonian Gallery, London (2026)
  • Into the Woods, Make Room, Los Angeles (2025)
  • La Mariposa, Soho Revue, London (2025)
  • Supercommunity, Tank Shanghai (2024)
  • Disembodied, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2024)
  • X Museum Triennial, Beijing (2023)
  • Come Closer, Indigo+Madder, London (2023)
  • Mother Art Prize Exhibition, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2023)
  • Syncopes, Mimosa House, London (2021)

Awards & Grants

  • Judge’s Choice, The College of Psychic Studies Art Competition (2026)
  • Eaton Fund (2026)
  • Mother Art Prize Online Award (2023)
  • Arts Council England DYCP Grant (2023)
  • Shortlisted for FBA Futures (2019)

Publication