Mythical Journey Exhibition in Shanghai

Convergence, Divergence and Meeting in the Middle – Fion Gunn & Shoran Jiang
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This exhibition brings together the practices of Fion Gunn and Shoran Jiang to explore the mythologies of East and West—specifically Chinese, Greek, and Irish—through a female-centric, contemporary lens. At its heart lies a dialogue between convergence, where myths echo across cultures in their archetypes and metaphors, and divergence, where cultural distinctions shape different forms of storytelling, visual language, and gender dynamics.
Myth as a Shared Framework:
Both artists engage with myth not as static legacy, but as a living system of imagery, memory, and moral questioning. These myths—whether the Greek tragedies of Hecabe, Medea, and Antigone, the Irish legends of warrior queens like Medb or goddesses such as Brigid, or the Chinese tales of Chang’e (the Moon Goddess), Mazu (Goddess of the Sea), Hua Mulan (folk heroine and warrior), and the fox spirit Huli Jing—offer a framework to interrogate identity, justice, sacrifice, and transformation. Gunn and Jiang each work across painting, drawing, collage, and immersive media to reimagine these stories for the contemporary moment, particularly by foregrounding female voices and perspectives long marginalised or suppressed.

Convergence arises in the recurring motifs and structural parallels:

• The journeying woman—Penelope, Eurydice, or the wandering spirit Magu (Taoist immortal) and Ye Xian (the Chinese Cinderella)—embodies themes of endurance and renewal.
• Maternal grief—Hecabe’s loss, Demeter’s search for Persephone—finds echoes in Mazu’s mythology, where she protects seafarers after mourning her lost brothers, or in the compassionate deification of Guanyin, a bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world.
• Female agency and rebellion—Antigone’s defiance, Medea’s terrifying assertion of justice—are mirrored in Chinese tales where women like Hua Mulan defy societal norms, and fox spirits like Huli Jing shift between roles of enchantress, avenger, and protector.

In divergence, the artists reflect the distinct aesthetic vocabularies and symbolic architectures of their cultural heritages:

• Gunn’s works are layered, collagic, intertextual—combining broken classical forms which have been ‘restored’ though painting, with birds in flight and ships in motion which evoke the migrations of ideas and peoples across the globe, islands of refuge, and poetic annotations. Her Irish and European perspective lends a richness of historical cross-reference, and poetic reimaginings, particularly through literary voices like Yeats, Joyce, Eavan Boland and Zoe Skoulding and others. She investigates the role of women in myths and historical narratives, carefully reclaiming the iconography for those many women their stories and perspectives, who have been airbrushed out of ‘His’tory.
• Jiang’s work draws on Chinese brushwork traditions, fantastical illustration, and mythic symbolism—evoking flowing robes, heavenly beasts, and celestial motifs. Figures like Chang’e, Bai Suzhen (the White Snake spirit), or Longnü (the Dragon Girl of Buddhist legend) populate her narrative spaces, expressing both vulnerability and latent power. She explores the intersection of mythology, symbolism, and contemporary life through the depiction of animals that carry deep cultural and emotional meaning. In her Wealth Guardian and Zen Cat series, she reimagines beloved and mythical creatures—such as deer, cats, toads, tortoises, and Pixiu—as guardians of prosperity, serenity, and spiritual balance.


• Rooted in Chinese folklore and inspired by traditional motifs, her characters are placed in playful, modern settings—featuring bicycles, sofas, or vintage vehicles—to spark a dialogue between ancient wisdom and present-day life. Each figure becomes both a visual symbol and a quiet companion navigating today’s world. Her colour palette and compositional rhythm differ from Gunn’s, yet the conceptual purpose aligns: to give these mythical women renewed vitality and agency, to understand their timeless and current relevance.

Thematic Anchors:

• Voice & Silence: Many of the women depicted across these myths were silenced—by gods, husbands, or fate. This exhibition reinstates their voices, giving emotional texture and visual form to their experiences.
• Transformation & Becoming: Mythical women often transform—into stone, birds, spirits, or stars. This metaphor of metamorphosis becomes a visual and philosophical strategy for both artists, representing escape, survival, and reclamation.
• Home & Exile: The longing for return (Ithaca, the underworld, the moon palace, or the spirit realm) recurs as a central motif—reflecting contemporary displacements, personal migrations, and the search for belonging.

Through these converging and diverging trajectories, Gunn and Jiang illuminate the universality of myth while affirming the importance of cultural specificity. The show becomes a bridge across geographies and time, where women from different traditions step out of the margins and into the centre of their own stories.