Thermocline
温跃层
Feb 27, 2026 - Mar 12, 2026
Space Matter Gallery, LA, CA
Opening: Jan 27
Hosting Institutions: Current State Studio
Curator: Xumeng Zhang
Statement:
Current State is pleased to announce the group exhibition Thermocline, presented at Space Matter. Curated by emerging curator Xumeng Zhang and supported by design studio Rest Studio, the exhibition brings together works by Patrick Chuka, Xuemeng Li, Chong Liu, Jichen Lu, Yena Seo-Yeon Park, Studio Plume, I Chin Sung, and Yurong Xiao. Coming from diverse cultural backgrounds and distinct creative contexts, eight artists work across multiple media and visual languages, yet collectively engage with a condition that resists singular definition and defies immediate naming.
Thermocline serves as a metaphorical translation of this complex state. In physical oceanography, a thermocline refers to a stratified zone within a body of water where temperature changes rapidly over a certain depth interval. While surface temperatures are readily perceptible, dramatic shifts often occur beneath the surface: swift, consequential, and largely imperceptible. The exhibition draws on this concept as a lens through which to examine psychological experience, focusing on emotional undercurrents that exist beneath apparent surface equilibrium.
In contemporary discourse, state of mind is frequently framed within discussions of psychological sub-health or mental illness. Across media reporting and psychological assessments, emotions are frequently reduced to discrete, classifiable parameters used to determine whether an individual is “normal.” Such frameworks flatten what is in fact a continuous spectrum of affect, gradually eroding the richness and complexity of emotional life. The exhibition instead proposes the state of mind as a continuous, layered structure: one that exists beneath surface balance and remains in ongoing formation, accumulation, and transformation.
At the same time, the color blue occupies a similarly overdetermined position in everyday experience. Within the visual languages of capital and technology, blue is widely deployed to signify calm, rationality, reliability, and trust. Conversely, in art history and literary tradition, blue has long been associated with melancholy and loss. Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period, with its distinct historical atmosphere, and Maggie Nelson’s sustained return to blue in relation to illness and affective instability, are emblematic of this lineage. Colloquial expressions such as “feeling blue” further cement the color’s association with sadness and emotional crisis. It is precisely within the accumulation of these contradictory meanings that blue reveals its complexity: not as a transparent symbol of a single emotion, but as an open field continually shaped by history, institutions, markets, and lived experience.
Within this context, Thermocline does not seek to offer yet another simplified therapeutic narrative. Instead, the exhibition returns attention to the artists’ individual life textures and social coordinates, reconsidering the seemingly self-evident links between blue and psychological states. The works are approached as responses to, deviations from, or even resistances against established affective frameworks, grounded in both personal experience and social reality.
Within a shared visual field of blue, different states of mind, life stages, and social positions are juxtaposed. Through this constellation, viewers are invited to perceive state of mind not as a fixed diagnostic outcome, but as a condition continuously shaped and rewritten within the overlapping folds of lived experience, artistic practice, and social environment.
临在空间（Current State）欣然宣布将于其洛杉矶空间（Space Matter）推出群展“温跃层”（Thermocline）。本次展览由年轻策展人张栩萌（Xumeng Zhang）策展，设计工作室休息处（Rest Studio）支持，汇集帕特里克·丘卡（Patrick Chuka）、李雪蒙（Xuemeng Li）、刘冲（Chong Liu）、路济尘（Jichen Lu）、朴瑞妍·叶娜（Yena Seo-Yeon Park）、羽工作室（Studio Plume）、宋宜静（I Chin Sung）与肖钰蓉（Yurong Xiao）八位艺术家的作品。尽管这些创作者来自不同的文化背景和创作语境，其实践亦横跨迥异的媒介与视觉语言，但他们却共同捕捉到了一种难以被单一定义、亦无法被迅速命名的状态。
“温跃层”（Thermocline）正是对这种复杂状态的一种隐喻性转译。在海洋学中，温跃层用于描述水体中在一定深度范围内温度随海水深度发生剧烈变化的分层结构。水平面温度往往容易被人感知，而在某一深度之下，温度却在经历迅速且不易被人察觉的急剧转变。策展人将这一概念引入对心理经验的审视，试图以此作为一种透镜，去观察那些存在于表面平衡之下那些尚未被命名、也难以被完全归类的情绪暗流。
与此同时，“蓝色”（blue）在我们的日常经验中同样承载着高度固定的意义。一方面，在资本与科技品牌的视觉系统中，蓝色被大量使用，用以传达冷静、理性、可靠与信任感；另一方面，在艺术史与文学传统中，蓝色又常常与忧郁、失落等情绪联系在一起。毕加索（Pablo Picasso）的蓝色时期（Blue Period）所呈现的时代氛围，以及玛吉·尼尔森（Maggie Nelson）在写作中不断回返蓝色、疾病与情感之间微妙而不稳定的关系，都是这一传统的重要例证。加之日常语言中“feeling blue”类似的表达，蓝色几乎自然而然地成为忧郁、低落与情感危机的代名词。正是在这些彼此矛盾却同时存在的意义叠加之中，蓝色显露出其复杂性：它并非一种单一情绪的直观象征，而是被历史、制度、市场与个人感受反复塑造的一个开放场域。
在此背景下，本次展览并不试图为“蓝色”或“心境”提供另一种简单的疗愈叙事（Therapeutic Narrative）。相反，策展人将视角拉回到艺术家的个体生命纹理与社会坐标中，重新思考蓝色与心理状态之间那些看似理所当然的联系。展览将从艺术家的个人生命经历与他们所处的社会现实出发，把作品视为对既有情感经验的回应、偏移，甚至反抗。
在同一片蓝色的视觉语境中，不同的心境状态、人生阶段与社会位置被并置呈现（juxtaposition）。由此，观者得以看到：心境并非一个固定的诊断结果，而是在生活经验、创作过程与社会环境的重叠褶皱中，不断被塑造和重写的。
Artist Works
The Grand Hotel, 2025
Oil on canvas
12” × 9”
Look What I Found!, 2026
Oil on canvas
12” × 9”
What Remains Locked, 2026
Oil on canvas
12” × 12”
Miào Huì (Temple Fair), 2026
Oil on canvas
14” × 12”
Sprites, 2025
Oil on wood
5” × 5”
There Were Times I Wished to See Your Ghost, 2025
Oil on cotton
20” × 17”
Let Me Show You, 2023
Pen on paper
23⅝” × 15¾”
Patience, 2023
Pen on paper
23⅝” × 15¾”
So I Asked Her — I Love You, Now Be My God
2025
Oil on fabric
86” × 40”
A Restful Contemplation, 2022
Image transfer on mirror
6¼” × 6¼”
To Look With Eyes Closed #5, 2020
Image transfer on mirror
6¼” × 6¼”
Tenderness, 2026
Oil on panel
Dimensions
The Silhouette of Mist, 2022
Image transfer on mirror
6¼” × 6¼”
Departure, 2022
Image transfer on mirror
6¼” × 6¼”
Untitled, 2025
Oil on canvas
24” × 18”
The Incomprehensible Sensation, 2022
Image transfer on mirror
6¼” × 6¼”
And Nothing Ever Happened
2025
Oil on canvas
15” × 12”
Untitled, 2025
Oil on canvas
24” × 18”
Eden, 2025
Oil on canvas
31½” × 23⅝”
Crossing, 2025
Oil on canvas
11¾” × 11¾”
Farewell, Morning, 2025
Oil on canvas
11¾” × 11¾”
Night Doves, 2025
Oil on canvas
11¾” × 11¾”
Arriving Just Behind You, 2025
Oil on canvas
11¾” × 11¾”
Event Documentation