Artist | Xiao Jiang Works Overview

Xiao Jiang was born in Jinggangshan, Jiangxi Province in 1977. He studied at China Academy of Art from 2000 to 2003. He now lives and works in Shanghai. His recent solo exhibitions include: The Distant Mountains, Platform China, Beijing (2021); “Mountains Aside”, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai (2021); An Inward Odyssey, Lianhua Apartment, Shanghai, China (2021); “In Common”, LEO Gallery, Hongkong, China (2020); “Right in Sight”, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai (2018); “MOUNTAINS”, MOCUBE, Beijing (2017). He also attended the following group exhibitions: “Decoherence”, ShanghART M50, Shanghai, China (2017). “A Turning Moment”, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China (2019); “The Kind Stranger”, UNArt Center, Shanghai, China (2019); “Incandescence”, BIG SPACE x Chino gallery, Shanghai, China (2019); “Group Exhibition in Summer—To Youth”, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, China (2019).

At the first glance at Xiao Jiang’s works, one would be encompassed with the sharp atmosphere. Something is left unsaid by his works, expressing the power in silence. Xiao Jiang’s works have drawn materials from episodes of movies and real life which are so familiar to people that are easily ignored. Under the artist’s unique perspective, they are cut out and recombined. Xiao takes inspiration from reality but structures them into an absolute fantasy world, leading the audience to dislocated visionary feelings.

In terms of coloration, Xiao Jiang has adopted the most basic and well-known complementary colors, red and green, to construct his canvas. With deliberate considerations of light and shadows, he has found a series of subtle shades of red and green, which created a harmony with calmness despite the high contrast between the two complementary colors. All subject matters are abstracted into geometric color blocks. With a few bright strokes contouring out the image, the paintings have carried on his artistic language, which characterizes his individual style in painting all along.

The empty rooms and daily supplies he painted, revealed withered and gridlock，submerged into unutterable dilemma. What they expressed were not distress, but forgotten, neglect, tininess and ordinary. The objects are nondescript, in Xiao Jiang’s creation, some even unbearable like urinal, rubble, blot, bloodstain, butt, soil and so on. Covered with unnatural light and anamorphic color, the images originated from photos and movies are separated from daily experience. Narration turns into unreliable. In the sealed cyclic space, scenes and objects are mutual evidence—scenes are background of the objects which simultaneously are the empty existence of scenes.