Abstract digital painting with swirling colors of blue, black, pink, and yellow. Text overlays indicate a dance surrealist photographic exhibition by Lance Chang, with details about the reception, solo exhibition, venue, and dates.

Dance Surrealist:

April 10, 2026 - May 1, 2026

A stylized logo for Chang Studio featuring a blue and green abstract design resembling a planet with orbit rings and the text 'changstudio' underneath.
A man wearing glasses and a colorful blue, yellow, and black patterned blazer, standing with his arms crossed in front of a dark background with Christmas ornaments and lights. The ornaments are white and black striped, and the lights are small and golden.

The Studio Door presents Dance Surrealist, a luminous series of photographic paintings by Lance Chang that blur the boundaries between photography, painting, and performance. Working with ballet and contemporary dancers, Chang captures movement as an unfolding visual experience rather than a single frozen moment. Figures dissolve into flowing color and light, creating dreamlike images that evoke the energy, grace, and mystery of dance. Chang’s work has been seen at The Studio Door for more than a decade through various exhibitions, even gracing the cover of our 50 To Watch regional exhibition catalog. This special presentation marks his first solo exhibition with the gallery, arriving on the heels of several major shows across the country.

Lance Chang is a Southern California–based photographer whose work explores movement, memory, and emotion through a distinctive painterly photographic style. Inspired in part by the shifting colors of the Aurora Borealis, he uses distortion and blur to heighten the dreamlike quality of his images. Chang earned degrees from Pomona College and the Brooks Institute of Photography, and his watercolor-like photographic prints are held in private collections across the US and Australia and were included in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Dance in New York.

Cover of THE WORD SAN DIEGO magazine, April 2026 issue with a group photo of diverse women and men. The magazine features headlines like 'A NIGHT IN PINK 50 YEARS STRONG: STEPPING STONE' and mentions of various contributors and articles.

The WORD San Diego • April 2026

Read The WORD on Art: Where Dance Slips Into The Surreal: The Photographic Paintings of Lance Chang

Watch The WORD on Art: Lance Chang’s Interview

Bald man wearing glasses, a multicolored Hawaiian shirt, and beige shorts, sitting on a wooden chair in an art studio, gesturing with his hands, with art on walls and magazines in a rack behind him.