Ten young women artists are exhibiting their contemporary artworks at the “Room Theater” exhibition at the Boxes Art Space in OCT Harbor. Entry is free.

“This is an exhibition of the works created by female artists, but it doesn’t mean that viewers can resort to a short cut to read their works with the help of arbitrary gender stereotypes,” curator Chen Xiaoyang said in the exhibition’s profile.

She borrows Virginia Woolf’s famous quote — “A woman must have money, and a room of her own, if she is to write fiction” — to stress her theme for the exhibition. “As a unique individual, each woman has her own palpable features. Today it becomes particularly significant to discuss such a contradiction in ‘rooms’ — closed and open space, a theater composed of ‘17 boxes,’” she said.

Just like Woolf’s stream of consciousness, the works selected for this exhibition showcase the participating artists’ personal observation on the world. These visual expressions are embodiments of their sensitive insights and philosophical thinking, and sophisticated records of the mystical material world and their secret spiritual spaces. “When you gaze upon and try to talk with these works, the effort to resolve the riddles within will fail if you rely on the impotent key of ‘female,’ especially when these subtle and deep feelings have been placed in such a fashionable commercial space. They are more like enigmas with superimposed answers coming to you at the transparent and surprising turnings,” said Chen.

Established in 2015, Boxes Art Space is a nonprofit organization built and financed by Shenzhen OCT Metropolis Entertainment Investment Company, managed by OCAT and operated by the curatorial team of the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, with consultation from the Institute of Art and Culture Innovation Research and Development Center of Sun Yat-sen University.

Located in OCT Harbor’s shopping center, Boxes Art Space consists of a main exhibition hall and 17 large transparent boxes as the auxiliary exhibition space.

Dates: Until April 30

Venue: Boxes Art Space, Block 11, Lan Ying Fang, 3/F, O’Plaza, OCT Harbor, Nanshan District (南山区欢乐海岸购物中心F3蓝楹坊11栋盒子空间)

Metro: Line 9 to Shenzhen Bay Park Station (深圳湾公园站), Exit E(SD News)