Black and White Karma – Turning: DOKU | New York and NADA Villa Warsaw

Nguyen Wahed Gallery is pleased to announce "Black and White Karma – Turning", a solo exhibition by avatar artist DOKU, opening May 21, 2025 at Nguyen Wahed Gallery, New York and simultaneously at NADA Villa Warsaw 2025.

DOKU the Creator: Black and White Karma – Turning is a new series created by DOKU - a virtual artist and avatar from the DOKU series of Lu Yang. Through meditative simulations in a virtual void and rooted in the structural system of the Bhavacakra (Wheel of Life), the 24 unique digital works visualize two karmic directions in samsara: the ascending white path (śukla-mārga) and the descending black path (kṛṣṇa-mārga). 

These dual karmic streams emerge from the wheel’s center, guiding beings through cyclic existence. DOKU enters observation, not judgment—witnessing how karma arises from mind, appears as solid, yet remains empty in essence. The 24 works reflect the 24-hour cycle—not as timekeeping, but as the ceaseless rhythm of thought, craving, fear, and becoming. Karma forms not only through action, but through the subtlest turn of mind. Each piece is a fragment of karmic motion, glimpsed in meditative stillness—a flicker of becoming within illusion. All appearance is movement within emptiness. Karma is the mind tracing itself. To see is to enter. To intend is already to turn.

The exhibitions at Nguyen Wahed gallery in New York and NADA Villa Warsaw will present immersive large-scale screening of the DOKU film of Lu Yang: DOKU the Creator, the latest chapter of their ongoing work DOKU. Named after the phrase ‘’Dokusho Dokushi’’ meaning "We are born alone, and we die alone, ‘’ the character DOKU is a digital shell, a virtual human whose digital assets the artist has been building for nearly five years, as a reincarnation of himself in a parallel universe - an extension of his soul into the digital realm. Building upon his ongoing interest in the digitization of the human body and mind, Yang’s own body provides the template for this virtual human whose ‘’creations’’ form the core of DOKU’s third narrative film and the NFT collection. The NFT digital works created by the avatar DOKU are released in collaboration with the online platform Fellowship.

Following the exhibition of DOKU with the screening of the “DOKU the Creator” chapter in Nguyen Wahed Gallery, the film, together with the previous DOKU chapters will be on view in the upcoming exhibition of Lu Yang in Amant Foundation in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn in fall 2025.