Vanguard Gallery is pleased to present Hu Jiayi’s solo project “Her Mustache,” opening on September 12, 2024. The exhibition features new works titled after the project, alongside representative pieces from the “Dalí’s Mustache” series. During the exhibition, the gallery’s project space is transformed into rooms adorned with maroon and gold, evoking the traditional museum settings used to display old master paintings. This carefully curated environment serves as a meaningful backdrop, heightening the impact of Hu Jiayi’s powerful and provocative works.

Hu Jiayi’s practice delves deeply into the intricacies of personal experience and the environments she encounters. Utilising an array of mediums, including video, performance, painting, installation, and sculpture, she constructs narratives that intertwine metaphor, intimacy, and alienation through the lens of the physical body.

In this project, Hu Jiayi directs her focus towards human hair as a site of identity formation. Whether highly groomed and public or concealed and laden with societal taboos, hair operates as both a marker of physical identity and a symbol of self-expression. In particular, Hu examines the complex relationship between women and their hair, with its cultural and social weight transforming what is typically the body’s outermost layer into a subject of control and conformity. In this way, hair becomes a powerful metaphor for the blurred boundaries between individual autonomy and societal expectations, challenging the viewer to reconsider notions of gender, identity, and power.