Chinese art from the days of socialist propaganda painting to the age of Political Pop was distinguished by its obviousness. No-one could be in any doubt about the heroic virtues of those workers, soldiers and peasants who stared resolutely from the posters of the 1970s. Neither was there anything equivocal about the social critiques of the reform era, which denounced greed and opportunism on all sides.

With a new generation artist such as Chen Wei (b.1980), we enter a world in which nothing is certain. Although his preferred medium is photography, Chen Wei’s scenarios are constructed like sculptures or theatre sets. These images may be disarmingly low-key but as we keep looking they reveal a broad range of possible meanings.

A typical piece will take us from the most ordinary scene to a vision of the cosmos. A leaning pile of books and papers threatening to crash onto a table top reproduces the shape of Hokusai’s great wave. The glint of coins thrown into a pond becomes a starry night. A doorway filled with red and blue light might be the entrance to a nightclub or to the Inferno.

Chen Wei’s images are open to multiple interpretations. In Palm, a glove spills gold coins onto a table. It might be a symbol of largesse, or a suggestion that the hand of generosity has been rudely severed – through anger or avarice? It could be seen as a rejection of the idea that an artist works only for money. It may be a hand offered in friendship but motivated only by profit. It is these ambiguities that give the piece its special emblematic power.

The uncertainties are just as prominent in a work such as Tower that shows basketballs piled high in a makeshift stand with three levels of hoops. One ball sits perched proudly on top, but the bottom levels are packed with balls. Others roll around on the floor. There seems to be a metaphor here, but what is it? Perhaps a reflection on human strivings and ambitions, which sees one person reach the top and many stall at a lower stage. Perhaps we are looking at a model of the state, controlled by the all-powerful party at the top. The balls suggest a game, but games can be a matter of life and death.

There is a surreal aspect to much of Chen Wei’s work, as in a picture of a pair of feet joined by tied shoe laces, or a plaster statue that has crumbled into powder. These scenarios are plausible but unlikely, filled with pathos and dark humour. They make us think that something strange has happened, or is about to happen. This sense of expectancy may be the most constant factor in a body of work that constantly plays on the viewer’s imagination, making each image seem like a still from a lost movie.