Multidisciplinary digital artist Di Cao recently presented new works at NEOI Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo. In 2025 he was invited to participate in the prestigious annual exhibition The Discerning Eye at Mall Galleries in London. In the same year he was shortlisted for the international group exhibition Art Evol 2025: Voices from the Undefined, initiated by the London Art Collective and presented at the Saatchi Gallery. Invited by NEOI Gallery, Di Cao presented his first solo exhibition Collective Body from 23 February to 1 March 2026. The exhibition marked an important stage in the artist’s development as a multicultural practitioner. It reflects his artistic journey from China to the United Kingdom and now to Japan. The exhibition was curated by Yulin Liu, the agent of Japanese artist Seitaro Yamazaki, and attracted more than a thousand visitors during its run.
Di Cao, “Collective body”, solo exhibition at NEOI Gallery, courtesy NEOI Gallery, Japan
Located in the central district of Ginza, NEOI Gallery focuses on contemporary artworks with strong collectable value. The gallery operates with the idea that art and beauty can serve as a means of healing the mind. In the broader context of contemporary digital art, Di Cao’s work reflects the shifting relationship between technology and artistic perception. As digital media becomes an increasingly important creative tool, artists are able to communicate experience through visual language with greater immediacy. These experiences may be deeply personal, yet they often resonate across different cultural contexts. Di Cao approaches digital art with a focus on both form and perception. His work explores the aesthetic possibilities embedded within technological media. While many digital artists emphasize technical spectacle, Di Cao seeks a balance between technological experimentation and artistic reflection.
Di Cao, “Collective body”, solo exhibition at NEOI Gallery, 2026, courtesy NEOI Gallery, Japan
Rather than following a fixed creative system, he develops his practice through individual projects. His digital work Particle Prowess, presented in the group exhibition Stay with the Murmur at A Space Gallery in New York, reflects this approach by bringing together ideas from sociology and physics. Through ongoing cross media experimentation, Di Cao’s work has gradually gained attention from international art platforms. His recent solo exhibition Collective Body presented a restrained visual language that explores themes of technology, space, individuality, culture, and structure. Behind this practice lies the artist’s cross cultural experience. Having lived between China and the United Kingdom, Di Cao has navigated two distinct cultural environments while attempting to function as a “normal person” in both. This experience forms the starting point for his series Normal People.
Di Cao, “Normal people”, 2024-2025, 3D digital illustration, courtesy NEOI Gallery, Japan
In these works the fragile figure of a young person sheds the external identity of the “normal person.” The images reflect a psychological state shaped by observation, social pressure, and disciplinary norms. From the age of eighteen to thirty the artist lived between Shanghai and the United Kingdom. This period required constant negotiation between different cultural systems. These experiences condense into restrained forms resembling bodies that cannot fully stretch. The works convey a persistent sense of tension and constraint. Beyond personal experience the series also examines broader questions of social norms and identity. In Normal People distinctive features are deliberately obscured. Symmetry and stillness create an aesthetic of normality. What appears natural is revealed as the result of training and social conditioning. Through this restrained visual language the work quietly exposes the systems it seeks to question.
Di Cao, “Normal people”, 2024-2025, 3D digital illustration, courtesy NEOI Gallery, Japan
Discussing the use of 3D digital media in the series, Di Cao explains: “Telling a story that makes me uncomfortable within a technological environment that I can control is itself a form of self healing.” For the artist each stage of modelling and rendering becomes a reflective process. Through repeated adjustments the present self gradually becomes clearer. In this way the artist begins to reconcile the different versions of the “normal person” formed across time and culture. Another work in the exhibition, Prayer, explores spiritual symbolism through a different visual language. In Prayer symbols associated with three major world religions appear together in a shared space of devotion. A figure of Jesus, a black robe, and a Buddhist kasaya are placed side by side in prayer. The work suggests both shared origins and complex historical relationships between different religious traditions. In this work viewers may perceive both asceticism and sacredness, alongside elements of desire and ambiguity. Religious identity emerges from the relationship between discipline and belief. Di Cao suggests that time itself can also function as a form of constraint. Faith and culture may nourish the spirit, yet they can also gradually limit other possibilities.
Di Cao, “Prayer”, 2018-2024, 3D digital illustration, courtesy NEOI Gallery, Japan
The exhibition does not attempt to offer definitive answers about faith, identity, or society. Instead it treats artistic practice as a form of ongoing self dialogue. For Di Cao the series Normal People reflects both a reconsideration of past experiences and a process of beginning again in the present. Through exhibitions within different curatorial frameworks his practice continues to evolve across diverse cultural contexts. Looking ahead Di Cao intends to continue exploring digital art while contributing to the development of cross media artistic networks in the United Kingdom. As his technical language expands he also seeks a stronger balance between experimentation and public engagement.
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Actor and performer, he loves visual arts in all their manifestations.
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