Dolls Don't Cry
January 9 - January 17, 2026
13 Grattan St, #402, Brooklyn, NY, 11206
New York, NY — A Space Gallery is pleased to present Dolls Don’t Cry, a group exhibition featuring Chloe Abidi, Shashi Arnold, Zhaoyue (Cindy) Chen, Lucia Gallipoli, Qingyuan Liang, Jobelle Quijano, Meiting Song, and Jianye Zou. Spanning painting, textiles, sculpture, installation, illustration, video, and digital media, the exhibition examines how emotional objects move beyond bedrooms and shelves to become companions in daily life, shaping intimacy, care, projection, and control.
Dolls do not cry, but sometimes we do. These objects sit with us through everyday moments, travel alongside us, and quietly absorb stress, fatigue, and emotions we do not always know how to name. Dolls Don’t Cry considers how emotional objects circulate through contemporary life not only as private comforts, but as presences embedded in routines, relationships, and shared spaces. The exhibition reflects on intimacy and distance, care and control, and the subtle ways objects help us navigate the emotional pressures of modern living.
Chloe Abidi presents Dream Ballet, a video installation housed within a castle-shaped wooden structure. A looping projection shows a performer attempting to align her body with abstract shapes cast onto her form, reflecting on discipline, performance, and the tension between digital systems and embodied experience.
Shashi Arnold contributes Innocence and Bird Song, fragile and poetic works that draw from childhood imagination and existential inquiry, exploring tenderness, loss, and instability.
Lucia Gallipoli presents Sorry, You Look Like Someone I Only See at Night, a diptych resembling a wallpapered wall with empty picture frames and a window opening onto a glittering void. Inspired by moments of mistaken recognition and emotional projection, the work reflects on loneliness, desire, and the search for intimacy in public space.
Jobelle Quijano’s Bringing My Dolls to Heaven With Me draws from childhood death anxiety and Catholic imagination, reflecting on impermanence and the fear of losing sentimental objects. Don’t Tell Me This Isn’t True explores dolls as vessels of femininity, fantasy, and self-projection, allowing for play, devotion, and spiritual attachment beyond the male gaze.
Jianye Zou’s Inly repositions dolls as protective forms wrapped around the body, transforming softness into emotional armor through care. Meiting Song’s The Best Girlfriend of 2025 and The Second Worst Girlfriend of 2025 take the form of trophy-like sculptures that critique romantic performance, reward systems, and emotional labor. Her work Girls extends this inquiry through small avatar-like figures that carry fragments of self-identity, emotion, and contradiction, using cuteness, accessories, and stillness as soft armor within an overwhelming urban environment. Zhaoyue (Cindy) Chen’s ceramic sculpture Jumping Rope Piggy Girl revisits a childhood toy to reflect on memory, globalization, and emotional well-being, while Qingyuan Liang’s Travels in Switzerland offers a quiet, illustrative meditation on solitude, tenderness, and imagined belonging.
Together, the artists in Dolls Don’t Cry consider how emotional objects quietly accompany contemporary life, absorbing feeling, holding memory, and revealing the delicate balance between vulnerability and control. The exhibition invites viewers to reflect on what we give to these objects, what they return to us, and how they shape the emotional landscapes of everyday living.
Installation View
