Gulistan. Time Garden
Curated by Gabriele Simongini
7 March – 8 April 2026
The Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome presents Time Garden, an exhibition dedicated to the painting practice of Gulistan, one of the most compelling voices on the contemporary Chinese art scene. Curated by Gabriele Simongini, the exhibition is supported and organised by the Foundation for Chinese Art in Italy and co-organised by the International Federation of Women Artists and 923 Art Space.
As an ideal heir to and witness of an understanding of the Silk Road conceived above all as a network of routes and relationships that brought peoples, languages, religions and images into contact, Gulistan has studied and travelled through these territories, also taking part in archaeological research along the route. From this experience emerged Time Garden, a body of 45 works in which the sandstorms of Dunhuang are imaginatively intertwined with the light of Rome, while the contemplative emptiness of Eastern aesthetics encounters the Western notion of the “unfinished.” Her expressive language thus becomes an ideal visual and spiritual bridge between two worlds, in which the mineral pigments of murals engage with the solidity of the Western fresco tradition, while Eastern calligraphic lines encounter the structure and tension of European modernity.
For Gulistan, time is not a line moving forward in a straight and irreversible progression, but a garden in which each flower represents a moment of memory, a fragment of civilisation, a cultural code that continues to live and transform. Her painting is thus grounded in a circular conception of existence, in which past and present permeate one another seamlessly, and where East and West do not confront each other as opposing poles, but merge in a profound and symbiotic coexistence that runs through themes, images and languages. It is a journey in which mental and spiritual space, memory, history and imagination blossom, inviting visitors to move among the works as through a landscape, following a path of references, layers and connections. As curator Simongini writes, “Gulistan seeks beauty in the evanescence and fluidity of what remains suspended. The dreams, memories, desires and thoughts of her female and male figures materialise above and around them in a flowering of images that seems to know no pause, like a perpetual dance.”
In the Fragments of Time series, earthy tones and the contemplative stillness of Giorgio Morandi coexist with the ochre-red of Dunhuang’s mural paintings and Eastern calligraphic lines. In other works, the flying Apsaras of the Chinese caves find an unexpected affinity with the dynamism of Umberto Boccioni. In the The Nature of Memory series, fragments of Roman sculpture are grafted onto the blurred silhouettes of Eastern female figures, while in Memory of the Portraits, the “unfinished” engages in a dialogue with the delicate diffusion of ink on paper characteristic of the Chinese tradition.
At the heart of this vision is walking, understood not only as a physical experience but also as an inner practice. It is through travelling and crossing landscapes, ruins, ancient sites and historical layers, as well as through the sedimentation of personal memories, that her painting takes shape. The step becomes a measure of space and time, a creative gesture and, at the same time, a form of meditation—a way of listening to places and translating their energy into images. Her technique likewise reflects this cultural bridge, as Gulistan often combines oil colours with water-based pigments, bringing these practices together in a gentle and natural coexistence. Her figures—suspended between dream and memory, appearance and dissolution—emerge on the canvas as light presences, poised in an unstable and poetic balance between what has been and what continues to become.
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
Viale delle Belle Arti 131, Rome
Dates
7 March – 8 April 2026
Tickets
The exhibition is included in the admission ticket to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Gulistan is a Chinese artist active between Beijing and the international art scene, whose painting practice develops along the cultural axis connecting East and West. After obtaining a Master’s degree in Oil Painting from Capital Normal University in Beijing (2000–2003), she completed a Master’s degree in Education at Flinders University in Australia (2005–2007). She currently teaches at Capital Normal University, where she combines her academic work with an intensive artistic practice.
Over the years, her work has been presented at major museums and international venues, including the China Art Museum, Shanghai Art Museum, Today Art Museum, Guangdong Provincial Museum, Poly Art Museum in Beijing, National Taiwan Normal University, Sejong Hall in Seoul and Ramsay Museum in Düsseldorf. Her works have also been exhibited in Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy and Dubai, confirming an increasingly significant presence on the international contemporary art scene.
In 2020, in Rome, she received the Contemporary Art Creation Award from the International Federation of Women Artists. In 2021, she held the solo exhibition The Color of Time at the National Art Museum of China. In 2022, she was featured in the exhibition The Temperature of Time: Chinese and Italian Artists’ Paintings, curated by Michelle Mope Andersson, which brought her artistic research into dialogue with that of Italian artist Antonio D’Acchille. In 2023, she was selected for the Florence Biennale, while in 2024 she participated in the International Contemporary Art Fair at the Louvre in Paris as part of the Chinese Women Artists Invitational Exhibition.
Her works are held in public and private collections, including the China Art Museum, the Delegation of the European Union and the Royal Family of Dubai, as well as in the collections of numerous international collectors.