Visitors at the art exhibition Photo: Courtesey of Minerva Gallery

The Restart Unlimited: Zhang Yanzi, Wang Xiao, Yu Yu Trio exhibition kicked off at the Minerva Gallery in Hefei, Anhui Province, on Saturday. The exhibition showcases 28 works the three female artists - Zhang Yanzi, Wang Xiao and Yu Yu - have created in recent years under the theme of "art therapy." 

Described as a therapy "wizard" by famous Chinese poet Bei Dao, Zhang explores the balance between the outer world and inner space. Taking art as therapy, her representative work Pain-killer Plaster expands the meaning behind medical treatments to the level of mental health. 

By obscuring space and time and creating scenes with metaphorical meanings, Wang creates works with strong visual presentations, stressing the confusion of the individual in the face of sophisticated relations.   

Yu disrupts the original silken cloth with moth pattern by taking out the lines of the silk piece, which can be interpreted as a decomposition of human creative behavior and a discussion of life and reincarnation. 

According to Zang Yiqian, curator of the exhibition, not only does the show explore how to embrace the various possibilities in the post-pandemic era - the search for inspiration and finding the motivation to start over - but also discusses the situation of Chinese female artists in the context of globalization and cosmopolitanism. The female creators go beyond specific person or event and focus on the universality of people, surpassing the frame of single gender subject.

The exhibition is set to end on October 13.