A meditation on thresholds, paradox, and presence, Gateless Gate: Ritual of Holding gathers artists across geographies and generations to explore the invisible borders between faith, matter, and meaning.
HOUSTON—October 28, 2025—okusendō Fine Art & Design presents Gateless Gate: Ritual of Holding, curated by Ann Shi and featuring selections from a poco art collective. The exhibition opens November 7 and will remain on view through November 16, 2025, at okusendō’s Montrose fine art and design space at 3700 Garrott Street, Houston, TX.
The exhibition marks the first installment of Through the Gateless Gate: A Trilogy—a curatorial meditation unfolding between Houston (Ritual of Holding), Los Angeles (Ritual of Returning), and New York (Ritual of Vanishing). Inspired by The Gateless Gate (無門關), a 13th-century Zen koan anthology compiled by the Chinese monk Wumen Huikai, the project reimagines the “gate” as a paradox—an invisible threshold that appears only when one tries to define it.
“The gateless gate is both a border and its dissolution,” says curator Ann Shi. “It’s a space of unlearning, where distinctions between sacred and secular, East and West, or artist and viewer fall away. To enter it is to hold paradox without resolution.”
Ritual of Holding brings together nine artists whose works traverse the liminal zones between material and spiritual experience: Charles Arnoldi, jinseok choi, Nancy Evans, Jacqueline Freedman, He Yunchang, Victoria May, Jasser Membreno, Liu Tianlian, and Aleza Zheng. Through sculpture, drawing, painting, video, and textile installation, the exhibition considers what it means to “hold” — to dwell rather than possess — within states of transformation.
Structured as a field of parallel energies rather than a linear narrative, the installation reflects
the Zen principle of shikantaza (“just sitting”). The spatial rhythm of the show resists hierarchy,
inviting viewers to move meditatively through quiet intervals of breath, scent, and shadow.
