'And all this beneath a sky by nature skyless
In which the sun set without setting at all
And hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.'
——The view from a grain of sand, Wisława Szymborska
‘The Fluid Sanctuary’ will present the latest creations of artist Ziyun Xu, featuring an array of works that ranges from paintings to mixed media installations. Xu's oeuvre is deeply rooted in Shanghai, the city where she’s born and raised, and this exhibition is a reinterpretation of her familiar environment and a continued exploration of reconciliation between herself and environment.
Xu's works reflect the city's pulse and emotional hues through her perspective. Her artistic practice often incorporates elements of psychogeography, capturing various architectural and natural elements from the urban environment at different moments. According to her feelings and the environment at the time, these elements are then simplified, extracted, juxtaposed, or stitched together. Though void of human figures, each painting is an emotional vessel that ties her to the city and the people she shares it with. In recent years, the artist has been exploring and expanding the narrative and spatial possibilities of painting. From the contemplation of the contradictions between people and the built environment and the coexistence of urban prosperity and deep-seated anxiety in people's lives in Oceanic Sky (2022) and Contemplation (2022), to her 2023 works, her interpretation of urban architectural elements has evolved dramatically after realising a more comfortable existence for herself. The artist poses questions to herself and the audience through these works: How does the contemporary environment, history, and nature shape our lives in a metropolis like Shanghai? How do we reconcile with ourselves and the environment, celebrating the sedimented history and present beauty?
In this series of new works exhibited, the artist, employing celestial blue as the dominant colour and delicate treatment of light and shadow, blurs the boundary between dreams and reality by juxtaposing different spaces, creating a naturally comfortable surrealism flowing within the painting. For instance, in work Blue Space (2023), the cloud shadow printed on the glass curtain wall is now underfoot, the metal window bars common in many city residential buildings in the 90s have become endless walls, and a patch of shadow seems to be cast by the summer sunlight by a moon gate in a Chinese courtyard; In works Flowing Window (2023) and Rooftop Reflections (2023), the juxtaposition of elements from different periods and cultures renders a sense of familiarity and alienation - they do not describe a specific location, but rather outline the city across time and space. The interwoven mirror expressions in the picture, thanks to the artist's soft yet precise brushwork, create a visually balanced, even playful tension, markedly different from the traditional surrealistic works with their intrinsic sense of absurdity and uncanny.
Transparency and mirroring are also significant elements in Xu's creation. She meticulously adjusts her painting techniques and materials employed according to the elements, viewpoints, and scales presented in a work, and delicately handles the highlights and mattes in the piece. In works Amidst the Halos (2023), Three States of the Window (2023), Unveiling Blue 1 & 2 (2023), the artist experiments with different materials, including mirrors, gauze, and fine sand, making the texture and details as eye-catching as the overall composition. These trials seem to investigate and demonstrate the evolving ways we discuss the world, with each approach as an abstract form. Xu's reinvention of abstract painting provides a retrospective perspective on the city while evoking personal memories and collective consensus about the city, scrutinising the past turmoil and fragmentation it has also once gone through.
The form of windows is another important element threading through this exhibition. In multiple works, the artist chose various forms and superimposition methods of the windows. In the most recent series, she depicts Chinese traditional lattice windows, stained glass in western architectures, mass-produced modern industrial windows, and contemporary architectural glass curtain walls - all from different perspectives. Each window figure is an in-depth dissection and personal expression of the city by the artist. The transparency of windows inherently makes them linkage of spaces, but under certain light or time conditions, windows could also serve as introspective mirrors. As a symbol of information acquisition, exchange, and reset, the window has become an important emblem, carrying Xu’s identity, experiences, contemplation, and expectations, refined through her continuous creation.
In the city, when we lift our gazes towards the sky, the future remains unpredictable. ‘The Fluid Sanctuary’ encapsulates artist Ziyun Xu's in-depth exploration of architecture as a metaphor for urban time and space, and a sincere sharing of her inner journey from confusion to reconciliation. Just like how she reconciled with herself this space you are in right now is the sanctuary Xu constructed for her viewers - with a hope that "it may also serve as a landing point for your souls in this very moment.”
Text by Yusi Xiong
