AroundSpace Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Shanghai-based artist Ding Beili and Swiss artist Marcel Gähler, the Silver in Memory. The exhibition will showcase the two artists’ most recent works on paper.

At a time when AI dramatically changes our way of seeing and representing this world, it is critical to retain the ability to visualize the world with a human touch. It is even more important to continue to make art with our hands. Marcel Gähler’s miniature drawings and Ding Beili’s subtle ink wash paintings on rice paper call for a special attention from the viewer, who are always attracted to spend more time with them. Their art reminds us of some alternative existential possibilities in life and nature.

Born in Zurich in 1969, Marcel Gähler received his art education at the Academy of Arts in his hometown. He has been exhibited frequently in Europe, as well as in Asia and North America. Influenced by a strong figurative art tradition in German-speaking regions, Gähler’s art features highly skilled draftsmanship, narrative images and a reserved, exquisite precision. He is interested in the material status of images, how they are positioned within a memory and can be transformed in time. With a special silver pen these painstakingly executed hand- drawn lines are nearly a type of meditation and set up an interplay between the materiality of the drawing and the perceptual consciousness of the viewer. What highlights this exhibition is a series of watercolors made in 2026, in which Gähler introduced colors to his signature silver gray tones. These elusive colors are like silver sparks in a black and white film.

Shanghai-based Ding Beili belongs to a new generation of ink painters in China. As a female artist who is extremely sensitive to colors and lights, her works on paper draws great attention to details and delicate, precise silver-gray tones. Her subject matters often focus on nature, plants, and urban environment, revealing to the viewers the artist’s attempts to interpret and refine the normal spectacles in order to conjure a reality different from our own. De-stabilizing traditional forms and media, Ding engages in improvisation and suspension between states of creation, engendering new transitions which reflect an ongoing interest in the mutability of perception and slippery encounters with beauty and everyday life.

Ding Beili and Marcel Gähler, two artists, one from the East and one from the West, having inherited different esthetic legacies and using different media, have created in their art impermeable and unbearable silver mists that feels like, rather than looks like, atmosphere. By recalling their own silver moments, their works are a mirror instead of a window, in which interiority and the outside world meet. They beckon us to the most invaluable moments in memory. In an age full of tech advancement and uncertainty, we can all benefit from slowing down, being more present, and fostering mindful and peaceful moments with ourselves.