RONG BAO: BAO RONG IS ALSO ME, TWO! 包蓉是我耶!

Carl Kostyál is delighted to announce the inaugural exhibition of our Hong Kong gallery with London-based Chinese artist Rong Bao (b. 1997). The exhibition ‘Bao Rong is also me, two!✌️’ is the artist’s debut exhibition in Asia, and follows on from her 2024 exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery, ‘Rong Bao is Me’.

March 23 – April 30, 2025

Known for her surreal, childlike and energetically subversive aesthetic, Bao’s sculptures and introspective self-portraits blur the boundaries between the organic and the synthetic, the intimate and the alien.

“Welcome to the playground of bold softness and unapologetic expression. A universe crafted in campy pinks, purples and blues, where biomorphic totems reign supreme, ingesting, vibrating and spasming across their dominion. At the heart of ‘Bao Rong is also me, two!✌️’ lies the colossal ‘The Hole’, a PVC pop extravaganza, which dares viewers to crawl inside its soft, unyielding exterior. At its entrance, a sunflower-like ruffle bursts open, its tendrils reaching towards the Hong Kong jungle. When the sculpture is dormant– that is when the artist is not inside of it, performing– a pair of helpless, eerily mindless prosthetic limbs dangle from its exit, swaying to a hypnotic rhythm.

Bao’s practice is an ongoing rebellion against the pressure to conform. Drawing from her own experiences with neurodiversity since childhood and the playful irreverence of youth, Bao creates tactile, joyous forms that resonate deeply with a generation embracing fluid, layered identities – constantly evolving, always in flux.

Bao’s art screams, whispers, and giggles all at once. It is a provocative exploration of deviation and alienation, order and chaos. Through her work, Bao invites viewers to revel in the messy, the restless, the gloriously imperfect. This is art that doesn’t just demand to be seen—it demands to be felt, in all its quivering, vibrant, neon-lit splendour.