Mo Shaolong depicts the collective portrait of the digital age through portraiture. By portraying faces, he narrates the individual's loss and fragmentation amid digital hegemony. In the talk held during his previous solo exhibition at the gallery, the artist elaborated on how his works accomplish a kind of psychological construction belonging to this era, while also exploring how the translation between virtual and real imagery and brushwork together constitute a contemporary expression of portrait painting. The works in this exhibition represent the artist's advancements in painting in 2025, reexamining the relationship between the artist as an individual and both imagery and the context of the times.
The work Xiao Wu draws on the character from the 1998 film Xiao Wu, portraying a figure on the margins of society. By adjusting color and the relationships of light and shadow, the artist accentuates details such as the facial contours and the hollows of the eyes, giving the figure a sense of being out of step with the times.
The work Zhen 2001 is based on the artist's junior high school classmate. Mo Shaolong witnessed her transformation from a youthful rock-and-roll girl into a mature housewife. Through a blue-black palette and a technique of layered accumulation, the painting presents a contrast between solidity and emptiness in the figure's expression and the background, reflecting the artist's interest in people within information and in the fragmentation of emotion.