The exhibition will display new figurative oil paintings depicting everyday objects and anonymous characters, alongside subjects from the natural world including leopards, birds and cacti. Precisely rendered using her own artistic language, Song’s works engage with classical ideals of representational painting and subtly evoke Western figurative artists.

From early on in her career Song distanced herself from the trend of depicting popular culture and cartoon imagery, which had defined the work of many of her post-1980s contemporaries in China. Empty interiors, solitary objects and faceless people are enveloped by vast space, with a sense of loneliness and nostalgia inhabiting much of Song’s practice.

Marlborough was one of the first galleries in Europe to exhibit contemporary Chinese art and have since put on multiple shows including Chinese Paintings (1953), an exhibition of work by Professor Chao Shao-an and his pupil Lydia Chao Ling-Fang, New Art from China: Post 1989 (1993), the first time that artists such as Zeng Fanzhi and Fang Lijun had been exhibited in Europe, as well as The Homecoming of Chen Yifei (1995).

For nearly 10 years Song’s work has been supported and collected by Zeng Fanzhi, who is widely considered to be one of China’s most influential artists. Song has exhibited widely in prominent institutions and galleries in Asia including the ARTMIA Foundation, Beijing, China (2010); Hyundai Gallery, Seoul, South Korea (2010) and Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong (2011).