Gao Hang’s work explores how digital culture shapes identity in the 21st century. Using garish neon colours and simplified, game-like figures, his paintings recall the early days of 3D video graphics – flat, low-polygon avatars that now feel outdated, awkward or strange. These figures become symbols of existential unease, reflecting the emotional flatness and absurdity of life lived through screens.

For Gao, digital graphics are like today’s ‘found objects’ – ready-made materials that speak to a shared online history. Once celebrated as cutting-edge, these visual forms now reveal the rapid pace of digital change and the contradictions at the heart of internet culture. His paintings parody the aesthetics of meme culture and the performance of masculinity, appearing light-hearted, while pointing to a deeper social and psychological malaise.

Through satire and digital nostalgia, Gao’s work captures the surreal logic of the online world – a space where humour and horror, apathy and anxiety, often sit side by side. His figures are both familiar and alien, caught between past and present, reality and simulation. In doing so, Gao invites viewers to question the emotional and cultural costs of life in the digital age.