Exhibition Dates
Start from 2025.7.3
Location
286 A Lakeshore Rd E, Oakville, ON L6J 1J2
Artist
Zihan Yuan
Organizer
Prometheus Art Gallery
Playtime is Over presents a selection of watercolor vignettes and conceptual works by artist Yuan Zihan, created between 2019 and 2023. These works emerge from the artist's lived experiences across different geographies and cultural landscapes, unfolding as both a visual diary of transient life and a subtle reflection on social transformation.
Spanning diverse settings—from the urban textures and everyday rhythms of Northwestern China, to the rapidly shifting cityscapes of Beijing and Shenzhen, to the layered tensions of cultural adaptation in North America—Yuan's seemingly intimate sketches form a fragmented yet authentic archive of an era. Beneath the delicate surfaces lies an ongoing exploration of the complex entanglement between personal memory, place, and historical undercurrents.
This exhibition also brings together several representative works previously shown in Montreal, Toronto, and other cities, providing a rare opportunity to trace the artist’s evolving practice. These moments of convergence offer both a self-reflective pause and a visual reconstruction that bridges geography, time, and identity.
The title Playtime is Over signifies more than the quiet closure of childhood; it points toward a sharper, more lucid gaze upon the world we inhabit. Some works revisit the artist’s earliest visual expressions—reinterpreting childhood drawings to evoke fragmented recollections of time lost, yet not forgotten. Others engage with broader cultural narratives, such as An Lee’s 2007 film Lust, Caution, to examine the intersections of gender, agency, and the quiet resistance embedded within historical structures.