Eli Klein Gallery presents Ruoyu Gong - Long Way Around

Installation view, Ruoyu Gong, Long Way Around, Eli Klein Gallery, New York

By NOAH BECKER February 21, 2026

Eli Klein Gallery presents Ruoyu Gong  -  Long Way Around as both a culmination and a pivot: a tightly focused exhibition that traces the arc of a young painter circling back to oil with renewed urgency. On view February 11–14, 2026 at 398 West Street in New York, the show gathers work from 2023 to 2026 and reads less like a survey than a psychological map. Curated by Huan Yang, the exhibition frames Gong’s recent evolution not as a break from past experiments but as a necessary detour—a long way around that clarifies what painting can hold.

Visitors viewing Regression — Babes’ Battle, Eli Klein Gallery, New York, 2026.

Ruoyu Gong’s practice has focused on the icon of the donkey, as seen in the comedic tradition of Xiangsheng. The donkey has multiple meanings. It is a symbol of the dynamics of power and a symbol of the artist's struggles. In earlier works, the donkey is frequently pushed into real space through bas-relief sculpture, protruding forms, and collaged elements. The boundary between sculptural works and paintings is tested through these works.

Opening reception, Eli Klein Gallery, New York, 2026.

During his final year of graduate study, Gong turned toward monotype, trace monotype, and collage-based experiments. The smaller works are more accidental. Gong paints faster and less focused on expected ideas. These are not studies but pushed into fully-realized statements. Humor enters the works and is a refreshing element within the use of color, mostly blue and blue-greens. 

Artists talking about his work, Eli Klein Gallery, New York, 2026. 

Long Way Around is about oil painting, but contemporary without nostalgia. Dream-like atmospheres permeate the paintings, bringing us into a poetic space. Narrative unfolds obliquely through accumulations of color, gesture, and spatial tension. Recognition happens through looking longer, lingering in the blue toned spaces. The donkey persists, sometimes clearly, sometimes as residue - an echo rather than an emblem.

At the opening reception, Eli Klein Gallery, New York, 2026.

Culture and tradition is part of the imagery. Traditional Chinese symbols are there, traces of Gong’s education in Beijing, Providence, and New York. These references, fragments of a collective unconscious, confront viewers. The result is a hybrid syntax in which irony softens into tenderness and absurdity shades into empathy.

At the opening reception, Eli Klein Gallery, New York, 2026.

Yang’s curatorial framing underscores this sense of negotiated return. By positioning the exhibition as a timeline of milestones and detours, she suggests that the apparent deviations - monotypes, bas relief, collage—were never distractions. They were conditions of growth. What appears indirect becomes essential.

Installation View of Regression — Babes’ Battle, Ruoyu Gong, Eli Klein Gallery, New York

Left Twice as Much, right Mr. Donkey Wondering Y

Left twice as much, middle Mr. Donkey Wondering Y, right Your Wish is My Command

In Long Way Around, painting is neither retreat nor safe haven. It is a testing ground where vulnerability coexists with wit, and where the artist’s long path through material experimentation resolves into something more elastic. Gong’s canvases invite slow looking. They reward uncertainty. And in their quiet oscillation between humor and tension, they offer a portrait of a young artist learning how to carry contradiction without collapsing under it.