A feeling of summer heat radiates from Lin Zhipeng (AKA No.223)’s photographs. It’s not just the golden light permeating his work that suggests warmth; it’s the febrile sensuality. “Originally from the South, I am captivated by warm light and sultry air,” the Beijing-based photographer explains. “I often travel to southern areas and tropical destinations, so a summery aura and mood always shine through my images.” Like summer, his work contains an abundance of flowers and fruit – sweet and alluring, yet on the cusp of rotting in the heat. “[These] are recurring symbols in my photography,” the Beijing-based photographer explains. “For me, they represent transience. They are beautiful, tender, ripe and fleeting. They contain desire, growth and inevitable decay.” The artist worked with YSL’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello to curate his latest exhibition at Saint Laurent Rive Droit Beijing. Taken from his extensive archive, the pictures were selected to echo the theme of Qixi, known as Chinese Valentine’s Day, which falls every year on 19 August. This body of work reverberates with the feverish sexuality and vibrating desire that makes his work so distinct.
© NO.223 (LIN ZHIPENG) & THREE SHADOWS +3 GALLERY / 编号223（林志鹏）及三影堂+3画廊
While the sliced figs, splayed grapefruit segments and lily heads with their sticky stamens are almost obscene, there’s a poetic, gentle quality to No. 223’s pictures – they are always suggestive rather than graphic. “I would describe the atmosphere of these photographs as tranquil and unrushed, imbued with understated sensuality,” he tells me. They are “laced with playfulness”.
Like the spirit of Qixi, they are romantic and tender. “This exhibition interprets romance and intimate human connection through the lens of Chinese Qixi culture,” he says. “It presents gentle, subtle, and authentic love moments expressed through flowers, fruit, human bodies, and quiet interactions.” We see the heads of two figures embraced, lit by a patch of sunlight; we see a palm gently holding the flowers of Ochna integerrima with their red petals and swollen black fruits; we see the very tender flesh of someone's neck, arched in pleasure or pain.
To me, there is a perfection about his pictures. But he resists this idea. “There is no such thing as a perfect photograph,” he insists. Instead, he’s drawn to “a sense of incompleteness in images – minor flaws within what otherwise appears harmonious, carrying an irreproducible emptiness. It is similar to shooting film; many imperfections emerge from outdated analogue technology, yet these blemishes hold their own charm. To embrace imperfection is a stance. I resist the overly polished completeness that prevails in our current digital era.” But, in this age of eerily flawless AI-generated images, perhaps the idiosyncrasies of analogue are the new standard of perfection. And, if not perfection, then some other sublime quality.
The exhibition will be running at Saint Laurent Rive Droit Beijing until 11 September 2026.