A Little Bit More Virtual Than Reality, A Little Bit Warmer than Craziness, A Little Bit Whiter Than Darkness, A Little Bit Longer than A heavy Sigh
2012 - Photography (Photography)
30H x 47W inches
Xiaoyun Chen
The lengthy titles in Chen Xiaoyun’s work often appear as colophons to his photographs that invite the viewer to a process of self realization through contemplating the distance between word and image. Near his studio, Chen often walks over fallen branches in late autumn and sense their existence. Thus, his placing them in diverse contexts builds a “narrative Ariadne’s thread” where the branches become “the language of things” intertextually cohering his oeuvre. Each branch provokes a new instinctual art making process without assigning too much meaning. In this particular work, tree branches are covered in black paint that resembles petroleum in thick calligraphic splatters. Here, metaphors of artifice and reality, as well as wistful emotions of transient existence, are loosely gestured through the paint over tree branch, forming a poetics of nature akin to the airs of ancient Chinese poetic anthologies that Hangzhou artists often reference.
Chen Xiaoyun studied ink painting at the Chinese Academy of Arts and lived as a writer in Suzhou before becoming part of the Hangzhou video art community. Chen’s works stages scenes of everyday life with elements of the strange and the absurd in order to explore existentialist themes through narratives of visual linearity. Chen is drawn to nighttime scenes of ambiguity, making use of shadows and silhouettes in concert with simple plots and fixed scenery to reconcile disjuncture in gazes and assert connections between the filmic eye and reality.
Colors:
Related works featuring themes of: » China, » Conflict, » Contemporary Surrealistic, » Film/Video, » Chinese
» see more
© » KADIST
Chen Shaoxiong
2007After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...
Other related works, blended automatically
» see more
© » KADIST
Pak Sheung Chuen
2017The series Nightmare Wallpapers represents a shift if Chuen’s practice, allowing the artist to immerse himself in an “artistic pilgrimage of self healing” following the failure of the 2014 Umbrella Movement...
Related works sharing similar palette
» see more
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Podcast 84: Traditional Arts: Dikir Barat, Kavadi Attam and Nanyin | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints December 8, 2020 ArtsEquator speaks to Lyn Lee, Nirmala Seshadri and Soultari Amin Farid about Nanyin, Kavadi Attam and Dikir Barat and the study and practice of traditional arts in Singapore...
© » KADIST
Zach Reini
2015Particularly shaped by his own youth in the 1990s, his recent works have incorporated things like a marijuana leaf, a dragon-emblazoned chain wallet, metal grommets, and the ubiquitous (in the 90s) Stussy symbol...
Related works from the » 2010's created around » Hangzhou, China
» see more
Other works by: » Xiaoyun Chen
» see more
© » KADIST
Xiaoyun Chen
2014The central point of Vanishing Point is the most direct physiological reaction of the body to the environment...
© » KADIST
Xiaoyun Chen
2006The image of rusted nails, nuts and bolts as shrapnel sandwiched between a fried Chicken burger highlights the contrast between decadence and destruction...
© » KADIST
Xiaoyun Chen
2006State Terrorism in the ultimate form of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood features a portrait of the artist wearing a zipped utilitarian jacket reminiscent of a worker’s uniform, with one arm behind his back as if forced to ingest a bundle of stick—a literal portrayal to the definition of fascism...
Related works found in the same semantic group
» see more
© » KQED
Beatles Memorabilia on Sale at SF’s Antiquarian Book Fair 2024 | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint The Do List This Year’s Antiquarian Book Fair Is a Little More Rock ‘N’ Roll Than Usual Rae Alexandra Feb 6 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email The Beatles with a copy of ‘Sgt...
© » KADIST
Marion Scemama, David Wojnarowicz
1989Political artist, painter, writer, performer, photographer, David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992 in New York City, was one of the leading figures of the New York Downtown artistic scene of the 80s...
