Square Street Gallery is pleased to present 'my gaze is as clear as your breath', a solo exhibition by Melody Qingmei Li, curated by Tong Hu. Through repeated sessions of observation and meditation, Qingmei distills her methodology of drawing skin into works within the exhibition.

At its core, my gaze is as clear as your breath invites viewers to reflect on the boundaries of the self and our connection to the world. Qingmei’s methodology of drawing skin begins with a simple act of gazing at a patch of skin. Through sustained observation, the familiar is transformed. Patterns, textures, and imperfections emerge, dissolving preconceived notions tied to race, gender, health, or class. Over time, these fragments of skin grow and connect, extending outward to embrace other beings, objects, and the larger organic and inorganic world. The boundary of skin begins to dissolve through the gaze.

Drawing on postmodern feminist theorist Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledge,” Qingmei resists the myth of objective, universal truth. Haraway points out that all knowledge is grounded in embodied experience, social structures, and technological systems. It is only by generating subjective, restricted apprehension repeatedly that we may apprehend a wider reality. Qingmei generates situated knowledge through her temporary, partial gazes she exercises through her practice of drawing skin, which forms the basis for the artworks in the exhibition.

The exhibition features a range of media. In collaged paper works, mineral pigments and incense ashes swirl together in fluid, merging marks echoing the abstract dissolution that occurs when gazing at skin, at times resembling skin gashes. Handmade silk forms a wispy, extended layer of ‘skin.’ They are mounted on custom stands with embedded mirrors that allow only partial glimpses of their reverse sides, embodying the situated, partial knowledge central to the practice. A set of vibrant acrylic paintings are also on display, some ruptured by tentacle-like forms that break free from the two-dimensional frame with violent vitality. Further in, it appears to have broken free completely, becoming independent sculptures on the wall, echoing the dissolving and crossing of boundaries with the gaze.

Qingmei shares her methodology in the artist’s book Body Map: The Manual, which provides step-by-step guidance to practice ‘drawing skin’. A two-channel video installation documents workshops at HART Haus led by Qingmei, where participants explored the four steps of her practice: “I–we/us–between–symbiosis.” These sessions culminated in a collective “symbiosis body map,” combining fragments of participants’ skin, gazes, thoughts, and elements from nearby surroundings such as tiles, moss, and raindrops. The footage from the workshop is juxtaposed with skin imagery gathered by Qingmei of skin from the artist herself, other participants, various textures taken from the organic and inorganic, and machine-generated visions of symbiosis. These realistic depictions of humans and plants, organisms and objects merging into one another evoke a sense of the uncanny, echoing the alien-like forms inhabiting the gallery walls. Small mirrors, first introduced in the paper collages, reappear in this installation, drawing viewers into the work by incorporating their reflections and physical bodies.

Besides visiting the exhibition and reading or collecting her artist book Body Map: The Manual, visitors can join this experiment in symbiosis by participating in the Body Map workshop held alongside the exhibition.