British-Chinese artist, poet, and children’s author Zhang Huaicun opened her major solo exhibition, Home Sweet Home, at Mall Galleries in London on 23rd July.
Far more than an art exhibition, Home Sweet Home invites visitors on an immersive journey exploring the universal meaning of home, belonging and human connection through painting, installation, light, sound and interactive experiences.
Curated by Dr. Chen Xianyan, Zhang’s daughter, the exhibition offers British audiences an artistic dialogue that transcends cultural boundaries through the shared language of family, memory and nature.
A specially commissioned immersive light installation—integrating Zhang’s visual language into a multimedia experience—marks the first time such a light show has been presented at an exhibition in Mall Galleries.
Speaking at the opening, Huaicun Zhang said, “What truly connects different cultures is not language, but emotion. Language requires translation, culture requires explanation, but a child’s smile, a mother’s embrace, and a story about home need almost no translation.”
This sentiment lies at the heart of Home Sweet Home. Rather than simply presenting artworks, the exhibition invites visitors to rediscover what “home” means through shared emotions and personal memories.
A gallery transformed
Developed over more than three decades, the exhibition draws on Zhang’s childhood memories, stories told by her grandmother, the grasslands where she grew up, her experience of leaving home, and later becoming both a mother and grandmother. Together these memories have been transformed into an immersive “picture book” that visitors can physically walk through.
Visitors begin in Little Xian’s Garden, inspired by Zhang’s first fairy tale, where clouds, birds, flowers and hundreds of white paper doves folded by children transform paintings into a fairy-tale landscape.
They then journey through The Weather Room and The Old Spider’s One Hundred Beds, where forests, hammocks, webs and shifting light create a dreamlike environment in which weather itself becomes something visitors can almost touch.
The experience concludes in the Forest of Socks, where socks of different colours, sizes and conditions symbolise stories of loss, repair, companionship and belonging.
These playful characters carry deeper emotional meanings. Through them, Zhang explores loneliness and friendship, vulnerability and repair, and the need to find one’s place in the world. In the Sock Forest, even the most imperfect or forgotten sock has the possibility of finding a home.
“I am not painting a single picture,” Zhang said. “I am creating a place where everyone who enters can find a home of their own.”
Children and families are encouraged to participate through workshops including folding peace doves, designing butterfly wings for ants, illustrating family stories, repairing old socks, creating dream socks and printmaking activities, making visitors active participants rather than passive observers. Through these activities, the exhibition becomes a work that is continually reshaped by its visitors.
A story more than 30 years in the making
As Michael Harrison, President of the Royal Society of British Artists, observed:
“Huaicun is almost telling the story of her entire life, and the greatest inspiration for all of it comes from her childhood memories.”
Born in Qinghai, north-western China, Zhang grew up surrounded by grasslands, mountains, snow and wind. The landscape remains visible in the recurring birds, flowers, trees and clouds of her paintings.
“Qinghai gave me my roots, Guangzhou gave me branches, and London allowed me to grow new leaves,” she said.
In Guangzhou, where she studied, taught, wrote and became a mother, Zhang began to establish herself as a creative artist. After living in Hong Kong, she eventually settled in London, an experience that gave her both distance from and a renewed understanding of her origins.
“It was only after leaving my birthplace that I began to understand more deeply what home means,” she said. “London gave me an open artistic environment and the opportunity to bring Chinese stories and Chinese emotions before an international audience.”
Zhang’s practice has developed across many disciplines. She has worked as a teacher, university professor, poet, painter, children’s author, translator and philanthropist. For her, these roles are connected by the same impulse: to listen, to tell stories and to bring people together.
“Teaching taught me to listen to children,” she said. “Writing helped me record emotions that are difficult to express aloud. Painting allowed me to communicate what words cannot contain. Translation showed me the feelings shared by different cultures, while philanthropy enabled me to pass the love of five generations of my family on to younger people.”
Five Generations, One Story
Running through the exhibition is a deeply personal narrative spanning five generations of women.
From Zhang’s 107-year-old grandmother, to her mother in her eighties, to Zhang herself, curator Dr Chen Xianyan, and Zhang’s two-year-old granddaughter Freya, the exhibition reflects over a century of family history centred on motherhood, growth, love and inheritance.
Dr Chen described Home Sweet Home as more than an exhibition: it is, she said, “a work of visual literature” belonging to a family, yet addressing questions shared by everyone—where we come from, what we inherit and how we find a place to call home.
Zhang’s childhood memories provided the first seeds of the project: stories told by her grandmother, the vastness of the Qinghai landscape and the freedom she experienced growing up close to nature. Later came separation from her birthplace, the creation of her own family, and her changing understanding of home as a mother and grandmother.
War, migration, the pandemic and a wider sense of social uncertainty added urgency to the theme.
“Is home a building, or is it a person?” Zhang asked. “Is it an identity, or a memory?”
Her answer is deliberately open. For Zhang, home is not fixed on a map. It is something carried, created and passed from one person to another.
Art with a Social Purpose
The exhibition also reflects Zhang’s long-standing commitment to philanthropy.
Tom Ilube CBE, Chair of The King’s Trust, praised Zhang’s dedication to supporting children and young people through art, literature and charitable work, noting that the exhibition’s themes of family, belonging and hope closely to align with the Trust’s mission.
At the opening ceremony, Pencil Tree CIO, founded by Zhang and her family, announced a new partnership with The King’s Trust, accompanied by its first charitable donation to support youth development.
During the exhibition, proceeds from selected artworks will support children’s arts education, international cultural exchange programmes, and the Sock Charity Project, which partners with UK homelessness charity The Passage.
“Art can do more than express emotion,” Zhang said. “A painting can open a door, a story can comfort a child, and one act of kindness may change a young person’s future.”
Home Sweet Home runs until 15 August 2026 at Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AS.
The accompanying programme includes artist talks, family workshops, pyjama parties, community events, and dedicated sessions for schools and community organisations.
Distinguished guests and supporters
The exhibition is presented by the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), in partnership with Mall Galleries, Pencil Tree CIO, and the Freya Foundation, with media support from Nouvelles d’Europe UK and additional support from Bicester Village and V&G.
At the opening many distinguished guests were present including Professor Dame Sally Davies DBE FRS FMedSci, UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance and Master of Trinity College Cambridge and former Chief Medical Officer for England; H.E. Teodoro Locsin Jr., Ambassador of the Philippines to the UK, together with Mrs Locsin; diplomats from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia; representatives of the Chinese Embassy in the UK; and members of the House of Lords.
The event also welcomed Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery; Michael Harrison, President of the Royal Society of British Artists; Tom Ilube CBE, Chair of The King’s Trust; Ben Marson, Director of Fundraising & Marketing at The King’s Trust; and Sir Douglas Flint CBE, Chairman of The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. More than ten recipients of British national honours, including Chu Ting Tang OBE, Chairman of the London Chinatown Chinese Association, were also in attendance.
The academic and cultural community was represented by Dr Liu Xinyuan, Senior Research Associate and Director of the Silk Roads Programme at King’s College, Cambridge, alongside Chinese film director Li Xue, artist Fan Yifu, professors from leading London art institutions and internationally renowned artists. Representatives from 14 UK charities also attended, reflecting the exhibition’s commitment to bringing together art, education and philanthropy.
The exhibition also received a congratulatory letter from Dame Susan Langley DBE, the 697th Lord Mayor of the City of London, who praised the exhibition and wished it every success.
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