Artists › Xia Xiaowan › Articles
Available articles about Xia Xiawan
Xia Xiawan, a painter in volume
Interviewed by Thi-Von Muong-Hane
After an exhibition in 2007 in Germany alongside big names of the contemporary art world such as Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman and an impressive personal exhibition at the Today Art Museum in Beijing which ended mid-May, Xia Xiaowan takes a look back on the major guidelines that have channeled his work.
Runweb: How did you become a painter?
Xia Xiaowan: When I was a child, I already liked to draw but I didn't really have the opportunity to get training. It was not until college that I began to follow a proper education. My father found me a teacher who was a set designer and who had studied painting in Russia; hence the obvious Russian influence of my early work. My style has obviously changed since then. In college, I was able to discover many Western styles and works: the Renaissance and other Western currents left a deep impression in me.
You integrate into your own creations landscapes from traditional Chinese artists such as Fan Kuan (Song Period) and Li Tang (Qing Period). Why?
In this series, my aim was not to talk about the art of drawing but rather to reflect on the art of seeing. By working on landscapes painted hundreds of years ago, I wanted to explore the possibility of changing our views on pre-existing works.
What place does this series of glass paintings take in your work?
I have worked a lot on the concept of "corporality" because it interested me to question the viewers' perception. Paintings are in two dimensions. The Western method of setting up a perspective using one focal point is a pure illusion. This 2D painting is the result of an artist's action, whose movement is in a space. Perspective which uses a focal point is like seeing with only one eye. When we use both eyes to see, this way of doing things does not work anymore. Hence my interest in creating spatial paintings, that don't resort to geometric perspective.
When did you get the idea to create your first spatial paintings?
In 2003, I decided to go in new direction. Before that date, I stopped oil painting for two years to devote myself exclusively to sketches. I wanted to return to the essence of painting. In October 2003, I exhibited my sketches at the Today Art Gallery and that is where, working in this vast empty space, I wondered about the introduction of spatiality into paintings.
Has your experience as a teacher at the Beijing Academy of Dramatic Arts influenced your art of setting?
Yes, there is an influence; because I see theater every day and I am myself a designer. But my inspiration comes mainly from my desire to transform a 2D space into a real space. By the way, until recently, my theatrical sets were decorated in the traditional sense. For my latest creation, the Ming Dynasties, a play inspired by one of Shakespeare's, I used this technique of painting on transparent surfaces and overlaying them. This adaptation will be played next October at the new National Peking Opera.
What do you think of contemporary artistic creation?
The current development of arts in China depends on the country's economic growth. But Chinese artists must keep in mind that if their works are only created as goods, their impact will remain very limited. They must first and foremost claim their artistic identity. The mistake would be to follow a trend simply for commercial gain. As for contemporary Western art, I rarely get a chance to travel, so I see very little works up close and outside of reporting. My view is probably not very precise. Although I can see a common trend in Western art and Oriental art. The public no longer needs to have extensive knowledge of art history to understand the works; it is more of an instinctive understanding. Duchamp is the source of this renewal in art. Before him, art was focused on literal illustration. But after him, the whole system was restructured.
What are your plans after the exhibition currently being held at the Aye Gallery?
I will continue my work on glass, but I'll stop painting landscapes to concentrate more on works on the body. As for exhibitions, they still emerge from chance encounters.
Source: www.beijing.runweb.com - Interviewed by Thi-Von Muong-Hane
On Creating Glass Paintings
It seems to me that realism of all genres of art has received the most intense attention and profound criticism from experts in the fields of aesthetics, history, science, education, ethics, politics and economy for a long period of time. It is hard to define realism as a doctrine of art, science, or maybe, politics or economy. It is incomprehensible to ordinary mind that the realist art should have such a far-reaching influence.
Artists of realistic paintings have been endeavoring to explore the visual reality. However, they are confined by the art's planar feature and its presupposition of a single view point, which prevent them from getting real close to true vision. Perhaps the issue has been ignored in the exploration of true vision in art; or perhaps true vision is just not something artists intend to achieve through painting. Realistic painting is defined as the reproduction of the reality and a way to understand the world. The advocacy of objectivity and science after the awakening of reason in history represented the arrival of the Age of Reason, a special era in the development process of the human society. This has turned vision, a subjective method of personal cognition, into a seemingly more objective and universal one.
The faithful reproduction of the common human vision relies on artists, and can only be demonstrated on canvasses. The enlightenment of the historical age had original and artistic preconditions. So the motives for creation in that time were various, mixed and contrastive.
The contrast is: on the one hand, realistic artists are in the eternal pursuit of objectivity and authenticity; on the other hand, reality is altered in paintings out of "aesthetic" and perceptual reasons, habitual preferences, and the advocacy of individuality. An "aesthetic" feature is imposed on reality.
In the process of the human exploration for reason, the relation between people as the subject and art as an object has been altered continuously. From the perspective of the western art history, art and science apart have managed to find the most suitable path of development. This has been accompanied by the shift of the vision of scientists away from art.
The huge impact of the historical "invasion" of science in art on its development is obvious. For a long time, the artistic achievements during that time of glory and enlightenment have been recognized as the most splendid in the human history.
Some of my ideas in this article may be radical, immature or even completely wrong. But what I want to get across is that the traditional realistic art requires efforts in the fields of art and science as well. Its contents mostly reflect the external law and common pattern of an object. The room left for the expression of individuality is limited. However, I believe this traditional doctrine possesses fundamental significance in studying and understanding art. Therefore, I have attempted for several times to experiment in that area.
The series of glass paintings is an experiment in which several principle concepts in realistic painting have been transformed in both form and function, including the transformation from a single point of view into double view points, between format and quality, etc.
The concept of space has been emphasized in the creation of sculptures and paintings, the former in the sense of material and the latter image. In spite of the differences in the techniques of creation, they can both influence the human mind. The "solidity" of the space in sculpture and the "emptiness" of that in painting represent the human need for the comparatively complete space.
By taking advantage of the simple slicing technology, I managed to turn planar painting into a three-dimensional one, stretching into the real space. "Painting in the true space" is the result of my wild imagination, which proves to be a fresh visual experience to the audience.
The prerequisite of a single view point in realistic paintings, similar to the functionality of the space, can not satisfy the psychological demand or combine with the physical reaction that will emerge when people are observing the world with their eyes. Though painting is a kind of art with "crystal clear" images, realistic artists that reproduce the reality should not be content with the "single lens reflex" image technology. Shouldn't realistic paintings faithfully reproduce the world seen with both eyes? This series must be viewed with both eyes, because it appears exactly like a planar realistic painting if looked at with a single eye in a set position. Only when the viewers use both of their eyes will they be able to gain the visual experience with a sense of space and distance.
