Meeting artist Chen Weirui at the preview of Ashes to Ashes, the winter group exhibition curated by Swanfall Art and held at the atmospheric Asylum Chapel in South London, was an ethereal experience. Built around 1827 in Peckham as part of a charitable Almshouse complex, the chapel’s weathered beauty provides a powerful setting for an exhibition that meditates on life, death, impermanence and the idea of immortality.
Inspired by Edward Whitchurch’s 1549 Book of Common Prayer and the biblical verse Genesis 3:19 – “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” – the Ashes to Ashes exhibition reflects on the transient nature of human existence. The familiar phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” underscores the paradox at the heart of the exhibition: while our physical forms are temporary, the search for meaning, legacy and spiritual continuity endures. Across the exhibition, artists confront the inevitability of decay and disappearance, acknowledging that all human creations, emotions and structures are ultimately destined to fade.
Within this context, Chen Weirui’s Matchstick Project Series: Life Matrix 05 stands out as a quietly powerful response to the exhibition’s themes of mortality and endurance. At first glance, the work appears minimal and precise, yet its material fragility carries profound symbolic weight. Weirui constructs a carefully ordered matrix of burnt matchsticks, each one extinguished at a different moment in time. The subtle variations in length and burn become a visual record of duration, decision and impermanence.
Fire, a force that both creates and destroys, is central to Weirui’s practice. The act of burning each match is ritualistic and meditative, transforming the process into a contemplative performance. By choosing when to extinguish the flame, the artist determines the life span of each individual matchstick. In doing so, he mirrors the human condition: existence shaped by forces both within and beyond our control.
Weirui’s matrix is inspired by social structures and collective movement. Individually, each matchstick is fragile and temporary; together, they form an ordered system. Weirui uses this tension to explore how individuals are often pressured to conform in order to belong, raising questions about autonomy, community and collective identity. Life and death, in this sense, are not only biological states but also social experiences.
To preserve this delicate moment of destruction, Weirui immortalises the burnt matchsticksby encasing them in hand-carved wooden frames modelled on vintage Chinese matchboxes. Each wooden unit is identical in size, evoking repetition and memory, while also introducing a quiet nostalgia. The handmade nature of the wood contrasts with the ephemerality of ash, suggesting an attempt to hold onto what is otherwise destined to disappear.
For Ashes to Ashes, Weirui presents two matchbox matrix works, both housed in ornate vintage gold frames. Chosen specifically for the church setting, the frames echo religious iconography and memorial traditions, reinforcing the work’s dialogue with sacred space and ritual. By pairing humble, burnt materials with historically loaded frames, Weirui bridges cultural contexts and time periods, communicating the universality of life, death and the human desire for continuity.
Ashes to Ashes also features works by Lyu Ruofel, Zhao Yuchu, Yang Yang, Chen Xinxing, Jason Kwong, William Lowry, Shavonne Yang, Luo Guangyi, Ji Chai and Li Shuangqiang, each responding in their own way to themes of impermanence, language and meaning, including the fragile semantic divide suggested by the Latin words malum (evil) and mālum (apple), where a slight shift in sound alters destiny itself.
Chen Weirui exhibited in Ashes to Ashes at Asylum Chapel, Caroline Gardens, Asylum Road, London in December 2025.
All images Courtesy of Chen Weirui. Follow Chen Weirui here.
View a video of Chen Weirui’s featured works in Ashes to Ashes below:
