▫️Exhibition Title: Holding Pattern

▫️Artist: Alex Close (Canadian-Macedonian, Foreign Expert, College of Chinese & ASEAN Arts, Chengdu University)

▫️Duration: Jul 3 – 5, 2026 | 9:00–17:00  (Free Entry)

▫️Venue: Tongzilin International Community Center

Mariner's Tendon 122x122cm

Jester in a Firepit 122x122cm

Over ten pieces including large mixed-media paintings, small panel studies, sketch drafts, textile and wooden installations

Opening Ceremony

  Jul 3, 2026, 19:00–21:00

Railroad Tycoon 122x122cm

Exhibition Concept

Holding Pattern revolves around the body, labour, perception, abstraction and contemporary life. Drawing from personal experience of self-surveillance, chronic overextension and the commodification of mental and physical labour, Alex Close captures shared inner tensions of digital fast-paced life: strain, imbalance, suspended anticipation, and the negotiation of perspectives. Her canvases freeze liminal moments — a drawn arrow, destabilised bodies, the split second before a leap — not merely as physical movement, but metaphors for modern self-discipline and the endless search for balance amid precarity.

Cartoons too Close to the Monitor 122x122cm

Her works absorb the visual logic of digital screens, integrating cyanotype, charcoal, pigment, acrylic, wood carving, and textile. Shattered grids, folded pictorial space and dissolved vertical and horizontal axes create unstable, perpetually shifting abstract surfaces. Against the backdrop of automated mass production, she upholds hand-made painting to interrogate the irreplaceable sensory knowledge embedded in bodily labour, touch, and slow creation.

Upstanding Citizen 152x122cm

False Fire 122x122cm

The show features seven large-scale 122cm mixed-media acrylic paintings, a series of small panel studies, sketch drafts, a 3×4m triangular textile installation, and five irregular wooden sculptural components. Several works are presented as in-progress pieces, offering a view into the artist’s complete creative process.

Double Dutch Before the Streetlight 122x122cm

Born in Toronto, Canada in 1993, Alex Close is a Canadian-Macedonian visual artist, educator and design researcher. She holds BFA, MFA in Fine Art Practice and MDes in Design Research from OCAD University (Canada), The Glasgow School of Art (UK) and Carleton University (Canada). Currently she works as a lecturer at College of Chinese & ASEAN Arts , Chengdu University. Her practice centres on how digital media and modern transportation reshape human memory, bodily movement, and spatial perception. Her abstract works break traditional artistic boundaries and have been exhibited in galleries and museums across Canada, New Zealand, Ukraine and more. She also serves as Creative Director of literary & art magazine ere, and frequently takes part in international cross-disciplinary art programmes with extensive cross-cultural exchange experience.