You Jin: Synapse

  • COMA is pleased to present the first Australian exhibition by Beijing-based Chinese artist You Jin (b. 1979), titled Synapse, on view from 21 November, 2025 to 10 January, 2026 at 37 Chapel Street, Marrickville, Sydney, NSW 2204.

     

    This new body of work extends You Jin’s ongoing exploration of perception, consciousness, and the boundless terrains of thought. Anchored in the artist’s reflections on the brain as not simply as a biological organ, but as a vast cosmology, a multidimensional site where thought, imagination, and existence interlace. The exhibition considers how neural networks might reveal new models for existence, bridging the real and the imagined, the material and the transcendental. For You Jin, these networks are both the architecture of perception and the source of myth: a system that allows us not only to interpret reality but to build entirely new worlds beyond its bounds.

     

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  • You Jin (b. 1979 in Shenyang, China. Lives and works in Beijing) is one of the most prominent Chinese artists...

    You Jin, 2025. Photo by Yangfan Gui.

    You Jin (b. 1979 in Shenyang, China. Lives and works in Beijing) is one of the most prominent Chinese artists of his generation. His work engages in a dialogue between tradition and modernity — transforming painting, ink, and mixed-media installation into a language that carries cultural memory while opening space for contemporary transformation.

     

    The artist is best known for his highly-saturated canvases which are a riot of near-psychedelic colour and line. In an era of accelerated digitalization, You’s painting practice builds a new visual language by superposing, breaking down, and reconstructing existing images. By prudently observing and refining simple geometric shapes, he conducts dynamic forms in space — shapes that reflect the fragmented structures of cities and Kandinsky-esque ways of thinking, as well as a microcosm of the multiple realities we currently inhabit.

     

    Recent solo exhibitions include: Fractal Dimension, Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong, 2023; Metaphor, 68 Projects, Berlin, Germany, 2021; Interlaced Dimensions, Parkview Art Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2016; The View Of Heterotopos, Alternative Space Loop, Seoul, South Korea, 2016; From Chaos to Freedom, Opera Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Chiwan No.1 Art Center, Shenzhen; ShanShang Art Museum, Dalian, China; Blanc Art Center, Xiamen, China; CANG Art Museum, Hangzhou; One Art Museum, Beijing, China; MoCA Shanghai, Shanghai; Xitang MoCA, Beijing; Tomson Riviera C+Space, Shanghai and many others.‬

  • “In my practice, I focus on social phenomena, individual perception, environmental characteristics, and the comparison between Eastern and Western cultures....
    You Jin
    Drifting, 2023
    oil on canvas
    150 x 200 cm 59 x 78 3/4 inches
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    “In my practice, I focus on social phenomena, individual perception, environmental characteristics, and the comparison between Eastern and Western cultures. I view the world and these points of interest through spatial observations – investigating the real and the imaginary.”

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  • 'Mixed and chaotic spatial arrangements are a new medium between people and society‭, ‬a form of linkage between people and...
    You Jin
    Neuron drifting narratives, 2025
    oil on canvas
    240 x 360 cm 94 1/2 x 141 3/4 inches
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    "Mixed and chaotic spatial arrangements are a new medium between people and society‭, ‬a form of linkage between people and the outer world.‭‬‮"

  • You Jin
    Kiwi in mind, 2024
    oil on canvas
    150 x 150 cm 59 x 59 inches
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