Curated by Relish
Spring Roots reflects on beginnings and the quiet yet dynamic forces of growth, stability, and vitality that accompany the turning of a new year. Like roots beneath the soil, these energies often remain unseen, sustaining life through depth rather than spectacle.
The exhibition explores shared rituals of celebration and their evolving forms through ornamentation, adorned bodies, and scenes of community. Moving between indulgence and intimacy, decoration and familiarity, the works consider celebration not only as display, but as a universal language of continuous warmth and belonging. Seen through the artists’ practices, care and excess are intertwined gestures through which generosity, devotion, and connection become visible.
Across cultures, celebrations function as social structures rather than isolated events. Re-enacted over time, they organise collective memory, mark cycles of passage, and allow communities to renew themselves through embodied participation.
Featuring Artists
Bangyu Fan (b. 1991 in Xi'an/ based in London ) is an interdisciplinary practitioner working with sculpture, installation, and sound. Their method is akin to drafting a non-linear narrative novel by starting with visual language, auditory language, and smell. Bangyu's fascination with ready-made materials and sculptural forms combines to create, linking past times and places. The materials bring accurate feelings. Through re-contextualization, with underlying narrative elements such as love, desire, indulgence, fetish, symmetry, and rituals, these works develop new narratives while serving as moments of nostalgia and imagination.
Alba Botines is a Spanish artist based in London. She holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2023) and she previously graduated with a First-Class Honours in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London (2022). She has exhibited at RA Summer Exhibition 2025, CICA Museum – Abstract Mind 2024, Unit - Worlds Beyond (2024), Guts Gallery – Beyond Boundaries (2024), Chancellors’ Circle Dinner at the Royal College of Art (2023) among others. Alba Botines creates spaces and landscapes that explore worlds in constant transformation, where growth and decay blur and the imagined merges with the real. Her work engages interconnectedness between species, becoming, fluidity and nomadic subjectivity while also examining the dynamics of pleasure, desire and control.
Miro King (b. 1995, Germany) is a London-based painter whose practice explores mythological and social satire through the recurring motif of the mask. He completed his BA Fine Art Painting at UAL Wimbledon College of Arts in 2019 and went on to graduate with an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2021. In 2019/20, he was awarded the Clyde & Co Art Award. King has exhibited internationally at galleries and fairs including Saatchi Gallery, Royal College of Art, UVNT Art Fair Madrid and SWAB Art Fair in Barcelona. His work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions across the UK and Europe and has also extended into collaborations, most notably through commissioned T-shirt designs for Uniqlo +J in 2021.
Samah Rafiq (b. 2000), is a London based Artist. She completed her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2024. Previously she completed her Undergraduate Degree at UAL Camberwell College of Arts, graduating in 2022 with a First Class Honours in Fine Art: Painting. Well versed throughout a range of artistic mediums, Samah works mainly in oil paint. Often, she creates studies alongside her main pieces in gouache, graphite and/or coloured pencil. Samah draws her inspiration from all kinds of visual media, ranging from films, vintage magazines, and advertisements to packaging and shop store fronts.
Leah Xuanru Wang (b. 2000, Jingdezhen, China) graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Film Production from the University for the Creative Arts, UK in 2023, and received her Master Degree in Arts & Humanities from the Royal College of Art, UK in 2024. Currently based in London, she primarily focuses on painting. Xuanru seeks to express the human experience of love and pathos through her painting practice. She is deeply inspired by Aby Warburg's concept of the "Pathosformel" (Pathos Formula), described as "a paradigm for expressing primitive, irrational, suffering, and passion-related life states." Her creative inspiration stems predominantly from historical films, classical painting, and literary texts. Her painting practice, akin to archaeology within art history, reaffirms humanity's timeless pathos-laden memories.
Angela Keying Yip (b.1995, HongKong) now lives and works in London and Shanghai, recently graduated from MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London, UK. And her BA from Performance Design and Practice at Central Saint martins in 2018. Keiying Yip’s practice delves into the shared emotions of sacredness, suffering, and transcendence within the framework of Buddhism philosophy. Through her understanding of cultural looting and religious revolutions, Yip examines how the meanings of objects are reshaped by external forces. Her practice touches on the fluid nature of identity, power, and personal experiences, revealing how objects once deemed sacred/precious undergo transformation over time, reflect on the authoritative significance these symbols held in different eras, while also acknowledging the enduring essence of their spiritual purposes. Her work reflects on how what was once revered can be remade, misunderstood or worn down, yet still carry a sense of inner life.
Qian Zhong Zoe (b.1995) is a London-based artist, born in Chengdu, China. Working primarily in painting, her practice examines the female body as a performative surface — a site where desire, control, and exposure intersect. Zhong’s paintings focus on fragmented bodies, stylised gestures, and carefully orchestrated colour. Figures are cropped, adorned, or partially obscured, oscillating between allure and unease. Rather than presenting complete narratives, her works isolate moments and details, inviting viewers into scenes that feel both intimate and staged. Her recent works explore the aesthetics of pleasure and spectacle, questioning how visibility and self-display shape contemporary subjectivity. Celebration becomes inseparable from tension; seduction carries an underlying sense of fracture. Zhong graduated from the Royal College of Art (Painting) in 2025.