SWAB ART FAIR 2026
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Chen describes his practice as encounters between bodies, images, histories, narratives, and moments that may seem fleeting yet hold the potential to transform intimacy, becoming, and belonging. Desire, gender temperament, power hierarchy, and the politics of intimacy remain central to his work, rooted in lived experience yet expanded into collective imaginaries. Painting has been the core of his practice in recent years. His portraits often depict friends, imagined figures, or fragmented bodies in states of openness, vulnerability, or anonymity. Through these figures, Chen constructs an erotic language that is sensuous without being explicit.
Jinbin Chen (b.1994, China) lives in Oslo. MFA Oslo National Academy of the Arts. BFA Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Work held in the collections of Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney National Museum Norway, Oslo etc. -
Lin (No.223) is a pivotal figure among the generation of Chinese artists who emerged internationally in the early 2000s. His diaristic yet carefully composed photographs trace the emotional texture of youth in contemporary China, where tradition and rapid social change coexist in tension. Oscillating between tenderness and detachment, intimacy and estrangement, his images reveal the desires and uncertainties of a generation seeking freedom. Balancing improvisation with deliberate staging, Lin transforms everyday bodies, objects, and interiors into charged, lyrical studies of presence and vulnerability.
No.223, ( b.1979, China) photographer based in Beijing. His works in Museum collection: La MEP (Paris, France), The Walther Collection (Ulm, Germany), Musée de la Photographie, (Charleroi, Belgium), Spencer Museum of Art (KS,USA), White Rabbit Museum (Sydney, Australia), Franciscans Museum (Deauville, France). -
Kiyoshi Yamamoto is a Japanese-Brazilian artist based in Bergen. He works across textiles, performance, and installation, and his practice explores identity, hybridity, and materiality through colour-driven, immersive expressions. By combining textiles such as silk and cotton with graphic and sculptural processes, he creates large-scale, participatory works that activate the body and the social space, often dissolving the boundaries between art, architecture, and performance.
He has held solo exhibitions at institutions including Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo; Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art; Trafo Kunsthall; Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg; KUBE Art Museum, Ålesund; and Hå gamle prestegard. His work has also been presented in group exhibitions at, among others, KODE Art Museums, Stavanger Art Museum, Galleri Format, and Kunsthall 3,14.
In 2025, Yamamoto realised a major commissioned work and an extensive solo presentation at MUNCH in Oslo, marking a significant institutional milestone in his career. In 2026, he is undertaking a large-scale commissioned work for the Norwegian Arts Council’s Honour Award. He is also developing a permanent public art project for Oslo District Court, commissioned by KORO, as part of his ongoing engagement with art in public and institutional contexts.
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Kari Aasen (b. 1950, Bergen) is a Norwegian ceramicist and visual artist based in Bergen. For decades, she has developed a distinctive practice in ceramics, sculpture, and installation, using stoneware and porcelain to explore time, material, and transformation.
Her organic, layered forms retain traces of their making—cracks, textures, and accumulated surfaces—moving between the raw and the refined. In her Still Life series, organic materials are transformed into porcelain objects, like fossils or frozen moments.
Aasen’s work is held in collections including the National Museum of Norway and KODE Art Museums. She has received numerous honours, including the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts’ Honour Award.
08th - 11th Oct
”Holding on to the weak is called strength.“ — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 52
In ancient Chinese philosophy, hard and soft, strength and weakness, are not fixed opposites locked in perpetual conflict. Rather, they are complementary aspects of a larger whole, constantly transforming into one another.
Ceramic and textile are two materials widely explored in contemporary art and craft. Through their physical properties, they are often associated with the hard and the soft respectively. Yet artists working with these materials frequently seek to move beyond such conventional distinctions, exploring qualities and sensations that challenge our expectations.
For this exhibition at the community-oriented art fair SWAB Barcelona, Northing has brought together Lydia SooJin Park, Daniella Bergschneider, Kiyoshi Yamamoto, and Kari Aasen, whose practices engage with one or both of these materials. Through sculpture, installation, and material experimentation, the artists either subvert the inherent properties traditionally associated with ceramic and textile or bring them into dialogue, creating new forms of balance and harmony.
The participation is kindly supported by oca norway and norwegian crafts through the ISGIES scheme.
Read the interview from Chart about how Northing is working to promote East Asian art in Norway (and vice versa), how the gallery is attracting new audiences from Nordic institutions and how contemporary art can help to prevent identity crises amongst future generations.
Dive into the full conversationhere
Chen
Jinbin (CN)
Lin Zhipeng /
No.223 (CN)
Kiyoshi
Yamamoto (JP/BR) + Kari Aasen(NO)
