Solo exhibition Aura Sun：Aura Enchanted, featuring recent works by emerging artist Aura Sun.
Aura Sun once described an object calling to the psyche: "The moment I saw the fishhook and fishing net in a museum in Hungary, I knew that I had to return to my hometown. It was as though the hook had caught hold of my heart and drawn it straight back to the sea. Everything in my world now leads back to the sea."
Toward the end of 2025, Sun returned to Rizhao, Shandong, and entered a period of working in near-total seclusion. She reduced her material needs and social contact to a minimum, listening only to the voice within.
Solo exhibition Aura Sun：Aura Enchanted, featuring recent works by emerging artist Aura Sun.
Aura Sun once described an object calling to the psyche: “The moment I saw the fishhook and fishing net in a museum in Hungary, I knew that I had to return to my hometown. It was as though the hook had caught hold of my heart and drawn it straight back to the sea. Everything in my world now leads back to the sea.”
Toward the end of 2025, Sun returned to Rizhao, Shandong, and entered a period of working in near-total seclusion. She reduced her material needs and social contact to a minimum, listening only to the voice within.
Exhibition Time:
6 Aug — 3 Sep 2026
Adrss:
203-2, SUHE HAUS, 30 Wen'an Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai
Adrss:
203-2, SUHE HAUS, 30 Wen’an Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai
HEAR ME OUT, 2026. Mixed media on silk, polyester fiber, anchor, 80 x 60
The sensitivity of Sun’s inner world is difficult to imagine. She meets the outside world with an almost defenceless receptivity. She is not naturally at ease in social situations, or perhaps, more precisely, she is unable to conceal her sincere self within the conventions of human interaction. This is why explaining her art to others is so difficult: she has already poured all her vulnerability, mystery, and resilience into the work itself. Unless she gives these forces form in the physical world, the images that inhabit both her everyday life and the depths of her subconscious threaten to consume her. Beneath her outward silence lies an inner vitality and an unwavering faith in art. At the core of Sun’s primal spirit lies a force of piercing intensity, sharp-edged, uncompromising, and unafraid to defy any form of authority.
Anu, 2026. Wood, brass, violin tuning peg, cotton thread, pencil and watercolor on paper, 50 x 50 x 6 cm
Aura Enchanted is not only the theme of the exhibition, but also Sun's path into art. Through the act of enchantment, she creates a passage between her inner world and reality. The "enchantment" at stake here is not magic, but voice.
The English word enchant derives from the Latin incantare, meaning "to sing or chant upon". The ancient imagination carried within enchantment begins precisely with this act of singing sound into a thing. Through her practice of "enchantment", Sun resists the standards of value within the flux of modern life that demand everything be rendered clear, legible, and meaningful. For her, art truly begins with the withdrawal of meaning, because art is what creates meaning.
Aura Enchanted is not only the theme of the exhibition, but also Sun’s path into art. Through the act of enchantment, she creates a passage between her inner world and reality. The “enchantment” at stake here is not magic, but voice.
The English word enchant derives from the Latin incantare, meaning “to sing or chant upon”. The ancient imagination carried within enchantment begins precisely with this act of singing sound into a thing. Through her practice of “enchantment”, Sun resists the standards of value within the flux of modern life that demand everything be rendered clear, legible, and meaningful. For her, art truly begins with the withdrawal of meaning, because art is what creates meaning.
Knock Knock The Interred Stars, 2026. Mixed media on canvas, 120 x 200 x 4cm
?, 2026. Wood, brass scale, light bulb, pencil and watercolor on paper, glass beads, polyester fiber, 125 x 80 x 20 cm
Throughout her student years, Sun was almost entirely immersed in musical theatre. Having studied the violin since childhood, she developed an acute sensitivity to sound. Yet, much as she withdraws in the presence of a crowd, she finds it difficult to play a piece from beginning to end. Her attention is too readily caught by certain minute and exquisite vibrations: "the friction between bow hair and strings, the strings' vibrations against the left jawbone, the changes within the body as the forearm extends, and the moment when particles of rosin are released into the air". In each of these moments of subtle trembling, her thoughts seem to leave the body and drift, as though in song, through the pure process of perception.
Throughout her student years, Sun was almost entirely immersed in musical theatre. Having studied the violin since childhood, she developed an acute sensitivity to sound. Yet, much as she withdraws in the presence of a crowd, she finds it difficult to play a piece from beginning to end. Her attention is too readily caught by certain minute and exquisite vibrations: “the friction between bow hair and strings, the strings’ vibrations against the left jawbone, the changes within the body as the forearm extends, and the moment when particles of rosin are released into the air”. In each of these moments of subtle trembling, her thoughts seem to leave the body and drift, as though in song, through the pure process of perception.
The allure of musical instruments in Sun’s work, therefore, lies not in their being played, but in the musicality latent within the objects themselves. Objects, materials, images, and even the body may all become instruments of a kind in her practice. What they contain is a force through which the invisible acquires vibration, structure, and rhythm.
Three interwoven threads offer a way into Sun’s work: the musical instrument, the weapon, and the sacred vessel. These are three forces to which an object becomes attuned through enchantment: resonance, resistance and cohesion. Instruments give vibration and rhythm to what has no tangible form; weapons give sharpness a definite direction and force; sacred objects gather things into rituals of inner contemplation. They are different transmutations of the same order taking place within objects.
Shadow Hunter, 2026. Wood, leather, oil on canvas, polyester fiber, cotton thread, brass letter opener, paper, glass bottle, red wine, 140 x 70 cm
The Bathing, 2026. Oil and acrylic on canvas, glass bottle, red wine, clothing, gold leaf, wood, 220 x 160 x 20 cm
Aura Sun: Aura Enchanted
