Cache Memory
Qin Tan, Shangkai Kevin Yu
THE BLANC
15 East 40th Street, New York
November 7 - December 6, 2025
Cache Memory is a two-person exhibition featuring New York-based artists Qin Tan and Shangkai Kevin Yu, curated by Leo Yuan.
A subtle feeling of nostalgia permeates the works of both Qin Tan and Shangkai Kevin Yu. Yet it is difficult to find its source, like a longing for a place or moment that never quite existed, or for a memory tucked away in a hidden cache.
Qin Tan, Hidden Games, 2025. Acrylic and oil on canvas. © Qin Tan
Qin Tan, The Last One Left, 2023. Acrylic and oil on canvas.
Tan describes her approach as a form of “virtual realism,” infusing a digital sensibility with painterly nuance, while Yu projects fragments of cultural and artistic memory onto inanimate objects, transforming the everyday into sites of reflection and quiet intimacy.
Qin Tan, Dreaming of A New Sun, 2025. Acrylic and oil on canvas. © Qin Tan
In Tan’s The Hometown I Will Never Leave, a car idles under the violet glow of a twilight sky. At the edge of a city, lush vegetation bathes in a synthetic twilight. No figures appear, yet the painting feels charged with presence. In Hidden Games, a sky-blue Nintendo Game Boy is surrounded by lush
green leaves, as if just discovered in a secret garden, its screen showing a pixelated game of Snake. Elsewhere, in The Last One Left, this classic arcade game becomes monumental. Bright green forms twist across the canvas in angular paths while an apple rests temptingly below. The background sky glows in a palette of mauve and violet, giving the image a mythic feel.
Shangkai Kevin Yu, The Coatraks, 2021. Oil on canvas over panel. © Shangkai Kevin Yu
The absence of figures in Tan’s work is echoed and emphasized in Yu’s paintings, where stories emerge from worlds inhabited solely by objects.
In Coatraks, two ornate coat racks stand side by side like sisters amid vivid 1980s-inspired patterns, their surroundings—Matisse-like carpets and wallpaper—heightening the sense of domestic theatricality. Jerome reimagines the scholar saint through a red stairlift, turning an object of care and dependency into an emblem of contemplation and quiet revelation. In Garden Party, Shangkai Kevin Yu transforms furniture into surrogates for human presence. Though no people appear, the chairs gather like family.
Shangkai Kevin Yu, Working Couple, 2020. Oil on canvas over panel.
These sentiments are perhaps best described by Yu himself: “It was a nice day. It was a nice day when we had a picnic in our garden, when we felt the well-earned soreness from a day of labor, when we took a moment to stand with our siblings, when we had an armchair epiphany from the wandering of our mind. I project our lives and narratives onto the objects in my paintings—pieces of our individual, cultural and artistic memories.”
Shangkai Kevin Yu, Garden Party, 2021. Oil on canvas over panel. © Shangkai Kevin Yu
