A mixed-media piece on graph paper combining water transfer, watercolor, and colored pencil. An arch-shaped structure frames a giant fly floating above the sea. Originating from a dream, the image presents weightlessness and distorted scale within the ordered grid, creating a suspended space between ritual, illusion, and structure.

Liu Zexuan born 1997 in Tibet, studied Thangka painting under the guidance of a lama. He graduated in 2021 with a degree in Oil Painting from Renmin University of China and is currently studying at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. He lives and works between Frankfurt and Gannan.
Liu’s practice centers on painting and experimental image-based approaches. His work examines the transformation of ritual, sacred imagery, and embodied experience within contemporary visual systems, modes of circulation, and structures of knowledge. Through his work, he often creates tension between tradition and modernity, intuition and structure, as well as between intimate experience and the distance of viewing.