Inside Wonder, Group EXHIBITION

Xinzhi Li - Usha Newland - Mark Alexander

April 1st - May 3rd 2026

Inside Wonder marks one year of Romulus Folio Gallery at The Gladstone in South Melbourne. Over this time, the space has evolved into an active site for exhibition, testing how art, design and spatial experience can exist within the conditions of everyday life.

The exhibition brings together works by Xinzhi Li and Usha Newland, presented within a spatial environment that also includes sculptural furniture by Mark Alexander. While each artist approaches form and feeling differently, together they establish a shared field of colour, atmosphere and perception.

In the work of Xinzhi Li, painting becomes a space where fragments of memory, psychological states and emotion emerge and dissolve. Forms remain fluid, moving between abstraction and figuration, allowing vulnerability, transformation and selfhood to coexist within a shifting visual language.

Usha Newland’s works approach colour through instinct, expression and atmosphere. Her paintings invite a slower engagement, where tonal relationships, softness and movement open a space for reflection. Rather than directing the viewer toward a fixed conclusion, they allow meaning to unfold gradually through looking.

Mark Alexander’s sculptural furniture remains present within the exhibition, contributing a formal language of curve, structure and continuity that enriches the environment and shapes how the works are encountered in space.

The title Inside Wonder speaks to a state of heightened attention. It suggests an interior condition that becomes visible through colour, form and spatial presence. Wonder is held here as something lived and immediate, found through perception, feeling and the act of remaining open to what is still emerging.

Across the exhibition, the works invite a different pace of looking. They ask the viewer to pause, to notice, and to stay with what is unfolding rather than seeking immediate resolution. In this way, Inside Wonder offers a space where perception remains open and where meaning continues to take shape through the act of encounter.

Curator and Spatial Interventions: Angelina Mirabito

Installation Lead: Scott Ross

Installation Assistant: Louisa Chu, Master of Arts and Cultural Management Intern, The University of Melbourne