Zen Foto Gallery is pleased to present "Ash", a solo exhibition by Muge from January 10 to February 8 to commemorate the publication of Muge’s photobook under the same title. This is the third solo exhibition of the artist presented by the gallery. His previous exhibition "Ash" was presented in 2013 and "Go Home" was held in 2009, the first year Zen Foto Gallery was founded. Muge’s series "Ash" was photographed from 2010 until the recent years and is divided into three parts: "Still Life", "Shan Shui" and "Scenery". Portraying still and moving objects in daily and natural spaces, the series reveals their transient changes—weathering, decaying, aging and growing. and this exhibition will be a rare opportunity to look at the series with traditional platinum prints, exquisitely handmade by the artist through complicated procedures.

"Ash" refers to the ashes of death: "In the cycle of life, one goes back to where one came from, all souls return to their creator."

When I used the large format camera to re-understand my hometown as it is now, I’ve discovered that all things in the real world derive from our internal desire: the Karma cycle of yearning for nature, destroying nature and mending nature (...) These images are taken from the understandings gleaned from my daily life, conveying the traces of time and history in nature, and a person’s thoughts of the future when faced with reality. — Muge