American psychologist George Mandler (2004) explained "Mind-pops" as fragments of knowledge that suddenly enter consciousness, such as words, images, or melodies. These highly random mind-pops often exist in everyday life in an "unnoticed" manner. When examining the neural mechanisms of memory processing, memory involves the processes of encoding, storing, and retrieving information. Therefore, mind-pops are not just appearing out of thin air; they are related to accumulating an individual's past experiences. This also seems to imply that the information we actually record may be more than we realize—forgotten memories may not have disappeared from the brain; they are simply hidden, making it impossible for you to discover their traces consciously. As a manifestation of many hidden memories, mind-pops correspond to the subject's genuine feedback about the world, pointing directly to the fact that the subconscious often knows the significance of a particular experience, even if our consciousness is unaware of it.

Artist Xinyu Zhou's creations draw from the endless stream of images in contemporary society's information flow, as well as the image and symbol memories built upon it. Zhou Xinyu's artistic practice integrates animation theory with experiments based on printmaking media. In recent years, her works have mainly used mixed media painting as the primary medium. The fusion of multiple media and the fragility brought about by material blending correspond to the emotions derived from personal experiences and publicness in the unfolding of time. In summary, Zhou Xinyu reveals attention to vulnerability and fragmented emotions in real life with a calm yet warm expressiveness. Her works unfold through the overlay of different layers, and the distorted lines project clear and significant moments extracted from chaotic memories. In her works, full of a mottled and seemingly aged visual, she deliberately imparts an archival quality to contemporary images, allowing her to delicately unravel the multi-threaded emotional memories, presenting scenes of memory like individual acts in a play, recording many fleeting things and flashing them back into the artist’s meticulous observation and material expression, intertwining the past and the present, describing subtle feelings that cannot be clarified by language or text.

Opening reception: 25 November, 3-6pm

Galery address: 4 Second Lane Tai Hang