ECCE HOMO

The first solo exhibition in Italy by Chinese artist Liu Ke—Professor and Vice Director of the School of Painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts—will open at Galleria Giovanni Bonelli in Milan on March 5, 2026, at 7:00 PM, and will remain on view until April 11, 2026.

Curated by Fabio Cavallucci and titled Ecce Homo, the exhibition presents a selection of recent paintings created between 2022 and 2025, offering a nuanced and mature insight into a body of research that is now fully consolidated. Widely recognized in China and East Asia, and among the artists represented by Whitestone Gallery in Hong Kong, Liu Ke has in recent years embarked on a gradual introduction into the European art system, with exhibitions already held at Kunsthalle Kempten and in Munich, Bavaria.
Ecce Homo thus marks a significant milestone in this process of cultural and symbolic transition. From an Eastern perspective, the evangelical reference in the exhibition’s title—to Christ presented by Pilate—appears intentionally diluted and transformed. Here, the “man” is Liu Ke himself, who symbolically presents himself—metaphorically naked and armed solely with his works—to a world that remains partly unfamiliar. Yet Ecce Homo also evokes a broader reflection on humanity itself: the men and women who inhabit his canvases, concealed behind geometries that are only seemingly abstract.

At first glance, Liu Ke’s works appear entirely non-figurative, dominated by intense chromatic fields—vivid reds, emerald greens, ultramarine blues. On closer observation, however, these abstract surfaces reveal themselves as impressions of landscapes: evening lights, dawns with suns emerging behind mountains, seas and skies; or, when the curves grow more intricate and contorted, allusions to bodies and figures engaged in sexual acts. In these works, synthetic signs and condensed chromatic passages do not directly disclose the image, but rather distill its perception, activating a mental and sensory space within the viewer’s gaze. In Liu Ke’s practice, abstraction is never an escape from reality, but a process of perceptual synthesis and an intensification of visual experience. An erudite artist with a solid philosophical background, Liu Ke develops a form of painting that moves constantly between thought and sensation, between image and concept—an equilibrium that also reflects his role as a professor and intellectual within the Chinese academic context.

The exhibition also provides the occasion for a high-level encounter between the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and young Italian artists who are students at the Brera Academy. Liu Ke brings to Milan a selection of very young artists from Guangzhou (Chen Jiachen, Gong Xuyao, Huang Zile, Lao Jiahhui, Yang Yifan, Yang Xinyu), while Matteo Bianchi, Tommaso Frattini, Elisa Pini, Mattia Riccardo, and Matteo Roversi—currently enrolled at the Milanese academy—have been selected to participate.

Finally, in the studio space, Liu Ke presents the history of the museums and exhibition spaces he has founded and directed. In addition to being an artist and professor, Liu Ke has long pursued significant curatorial activity. Sabaku was the first space opened in the ancient city of Guangzhou, initiating an independent reflection on institutional models, emerging artistic production, and the role of art in contemporary society. This was followed by the Boxes Museum, located at the center of Shunfeng Mountain Park, and, more recently, the Songshan Lake Boxes Museum. Yet his ambition to expand and reinvent spaces for art does not end there: Liu Ke is currently undertaking an extensive redevelopment project in his native region of Ningxiang, Hunan, transforming a former coal mine into a new center dedicated to artistic production and critical reflection.
Through this interweaving of painterly practice, theoretical research, and institutional development, Ecce Homo ultimately offers a complex portrait of an artist who conceives of art not merely as image, but as an active form of thought and intervention within the public sphere.

Liu Ke (1976, Born in Ning xiang of Hunan Province of china), Live and work in Guangzhou and Ning xiang. Professor of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Vice Dean of the School of Painting Arts and Head of the Oil Painting Department; Deputy director of China Artists Association Mixed Materials Painting Art Committee. Executive Director of Songshan Lake Art Museum and Boxes Art Museum.