Many Worlds, One Mind, a major new exhibition by multimedia artist Gordon Cheung, opened at Close Gallery in Somerset, England.
The exhibition features 28 sculptures, paintings, prints, and etchings. It offers a comprehensive survey of Cheung’s long-standing exploration of global capitalism and the social, economic, and political narratives it constructs.
Among the highlights of the exhibition is Cheung’s Passages of Time. Drawing upon stock market pages from the Financial Times, the artist reconfigures financial data into a distinctive visual language. Inspired by the formal qualities of traditional Chinese scholar’s rocks, he transforms flows of information into contemplative sculptural forms. In these works, landscapes of capital and data replace conventional natural scenery, encouraging viewers to reconsider the narrative frameworks underpinning the global economic order.
The exhibition also features works from Cheung’s ‘New Order’ series. Using algorithmic processes, he rearranges the pixels of high-resolution images of Dutch Golden Age still-life paintings, reinterpreting the visual legacy of the seventeenth-century Tulip Mania through contemporary digital technologies. The resulting works draw connections between material desire, historical repetition, and financial speculation. Several pieces further combine high-resolution imagery with algorithmic reconstruction, creating visual experiences that occupy a liminal space between the real and the virtual.
The exhibition is held at CLOSE Contemporary Art Gallery in Hatch Beauchamp, Surrey. It is located in the grounds of the 17th-century Close House.
The new Gordon Cheung exhibition Many Worlds, One Mind will be open until 15 August 2026.
At a special opening event that brought together artists, government representatives, and members of the media, guests gathered for lunch at Close House before touring the exhibition with the artist.
During the event, Cheung reflected on the formative influences behind his artistic thinking. The emergence of the internet and digital communication in the 1990s fundamentally transformed how people experience reality, sparking his interest in visualising new digital spaces and examining how they shape both individual and collective identities. At the same time, the 1997 transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China prompted an ongoing engagement with questions of colonialism, empire, and power structures.
Born and raised in London to a Hong Kong immigrant family, Cheung also spoke about the fluidity of identity and cultural belonging, themes that continue to inform his artistic practice. He has developed a distinctive visual language that moves seamlessly between Eastern and Western traditions, classical art history, and contemporary technological innovation. Integrating scientific processes, sculptural construction, 3D printing, and digitally mediated surfaces, his work invites viewers to consider how the systems shaping global trade, belief, and memory continue to define the landscapes we inhabit.
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