Cache Memory

THE BLANC is pleased to present Cache Memory, 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.

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.

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 Game, 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.

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.

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.”

On View: Nov 7 – Dec 6, 2025

Gallery Hours: 11 AM – 5 PM, Wednesday to Saturday

Location: 15 E 40th Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY 10016

Opening Reception: November 7, 6-8 PM

Artist

Qin Tan (b.1993, Beijing) is a contemporary painter based in New York, USA. Tan’s work explores the intersections of technology, consciousness, and myth in the modern human condition. Her paintings often depict surreal landscapes inhabited by yellow stick figures and anthropomorphic tools, symbols that move between the digital and the physical, the real and the imagined. Tan’s paintings invite quiet reflection on what it means to exist and feel in an increasingly virtual world.

Tan received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including ART021 Contemporary Art Fair (Shanghai), Tree Art Museum (Beijing), JPS Gallery (Hong Kong and Tokyo), Moosey Gallery (London), Abri Mars (New York), COCA (Seattle), Spring Break Art Fair (New York), Sapienza University (Rome), Towson University (Maryland), Marian Cramer Arts Projects (Amsterdam), and SACI (Florence).

She has been awarded grants and residencies from Artist Trust, The Tacoma Artist Initiative Program, Moosey Residency, Delaware Contemporary, Vermont Studio Center, and Wassaic Project. She will be attending upcoming residencies at PMQ (Hong Kong) and CCA Andratx (Spain).

Shangkai Kevin Yu (b.1987, Taiwan) lives and works in New York. Yu earned his BFA at Parsons School of Design and MFA at New York Academy of Art. He has participated in residencies with the Leipzig International Art Programme in Germany. His work has been exhibited throughout the US, as well as Germany and Denmark.

Curator

Leo Yuan is a writer and curator based in New York. He holds a BA in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Art Business from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York, and an MA in Art

History from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His writings can be found on Artnet, ARTnews China, The Brooklyn Rail, Art Basel Stories, among other places. He currently serves as

Associate Director, Curatorial, at THE BLANC.