Six Young Taiwanese Artists Take on a Lonely New Era at Nunu Fine Art

How often do you walk into a gallery and feel something less grand—no towering sculptures, no immersive video art, just a quiet hum of disconnection? In the exhibition “In the Moment” at Nunu Fine Art the pull isn’t the spectacle but rather something subtler and distinctly Gen Z. There’s a nearly tangible sense of displacement as if the world is constantly shifting beneath your feet, leaving only fragments: half-remembered images, glitchy memories, fleeting news and endless scrolling screens.

The six Taiwanese artists featured in this exhibition, all born in the 1990s, focus on capturing the instability of a life constantly mediated through digital filters. There’s a tension in their works—delicate yet firm, hesitant but demanding to be seen. The pieces insist on presence…on ‘being in the moment’… even as that moment fractures and reshapes itself. It’s a sensibility shared across Gen Z, both in Taiwan and the U.S., where real and virtual identities blur into one another, caught in a constant feedback loop.

“These artists grew up in an era of rapid digital and technological change,” curator Ching-Wen Chang tells Observer. “Their sense of identity has expanded beyond physical spaces into digital realms. In their work, you see detachment but also emotional depth. They’re ‘chill,’ but still searching for meaning.”

SEE ALSO: Amid Starry Nights and Sunflowers, the National Gallery’s Van Gogh Show Has More to Say

At the gallery’s entrance, Ning Fu’s work embodies this tension between digital disconnection and emotional resonance. Her piece Spirit Dog (2023) taps into the performative nature of online existence, inspired by internet memes and the chaotic spread of imagery online. “I’m fascinated by how a single image can be misunderstood, distorted and gain new meanings as it spreads,” Fu says. She layers online images in her paintings, creating a chaotic visual landscape that comments on how online culture reshapes reality.

For instance, she uses a glitch image of a running Afghan hound distorted by speed, layering it with imagery of a highway, creating a surreal hybrid that evokes both humor and the technological failures that warp our perception of the world. “I like to play with those moments when something familiar becomes strange,” Fu explains, blending wit with a critical eye on how digital culture shapes emotional experiences.

While Fu explores the world through internet memes, Chiao-Han Chueh delves into deeply personal themes of womanhood, fertility and the passage of time. Her work Big Falling Autumn Fruit (2024) merges natural elements like squirrels stashing away pine cones with female reproductive organs, reflecting on both fertility and societal pressures. “I don’t know if it’s because I just turned 35 or because it’s autumn, but the theme of fertility keeps creeping into my work,” Chueh says. Her exploration of fertility is not just biological but also cultural, critiquing societal expectations around motherhood and career. In She-Wolf (2024), which depicts three figures crying for milk inspired by Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s sculpture, she uses vibrant, chaotic colors to express the vitality and freedom of womanhood. “I want the colors to imply the liveliness of femininity,” she explains, intertwining classical references with a modern commentary on women’s experiences.

Guan-Jhen Wang’s work also explores the theme of fertility. Her piece Egg (2021) uses the egg as a metaphor for both fragility and possibility. “It’s an age-old question—did the chicken or the egg come first?—but it also represents emotional turbulence,” Wang says. The egg becomes a vessel for existential reflection, embodying both the trivial and the profound. “Even a small egg can carry endless possibilities,” she notes, infusing her work with playful absurdity while reflecting on the deeper currents of human experience.

In a world full of uncertainty, Gen Z collectively grapples with anxiety, struggling to find stability in a society that demands immediacy but offers little room for reflection. Bing-Ao Li’s Customs (2023) plays with ambiguity and memory. The painting feels both intimate and distant, as if something is remembered but not fully grasped. Li’s layers of acrylic mimic the way digital imagery shifts and blurs—elusive, constantly in flux. “I’m still figuring out when a painting is finished,” Li says.

In Guan-Hong Lu’s Apocalypse Now: Pig Rider (2024), humor takes center stage as a tool for critiquing Taiwan’s rural-urban divide. Inspired by a meme mocking rural communities for supposedly riding pigs, the painting features a pig biting an orange, a nod to traditional temple festivals. The title plays on the double meaning of the Chinese words for “rider” (騎士, Qí Shì) and “discrimination” (歧視, Qí Shì), both pronounced the same.

Lu’s work is subtly political, critiquing patriarchal structures, geopolitics and the hypocrisy of those in power. “The world is flattening,” he says, “and I try to reflect that absurdity in my work.” His use of humor to navigate a fractured, rapidly changing world resonates with Gen Z, who often turn to humor as a way to cope with modern chaos.

Qi-Heng Xiao’s Intersection in Flames (2020) is a quieter, more personal reflection. Rooted in Xiao’s experience during military service in 2019, the painting captures the dissonance between public duty and private grief. “The flowers around me felt like they were burning,” Xiao recalls, describing a surreal moment after a family funeral. The piece speaks to how mundane spaces become charged with memory, exploring the tension between lived experience and disembodied reality.

The works in “In the Moment” speak to a generation grappling with a world that moves too fast and leaves too little room for reflection. And yet, in their fragmented, often opaque subjects, there’s a persistence—a desire to hold onto something real, even when they’re not quite sure what that is.

The exhibition also marks the beginning of Nunu Fine Art’s fall programming and with the launch of “Project Space: Asian Voices,” the recently opened downstairs gallery space dedicated to showcasing experimental artistic expressions from Asia and the Asian diaspora in New York City.

“In the Moment” is at Nunu Fine Art through October 31.