Xia Xiaowan

Born 1958, Beijing and currently a professor of Stagecraft at the Beijing Central Academy of Drama, Xia Xiaowan surpasses the boundaries of painting. He draws his inspiration and method from X-ray photographs, giving two-dimensional painting a three-dimensional effect. He combines material, technology and painting, thus maintaining the hand-made qualities of painting while adding elements of installation and sculptural art and displaying the cold, absurd and strange qualities of realism.

Achieved via an arrangement of glass panes, varying from 14 to 21 depending on the work, glass paint and pencils, the recent works of Xia Xiaowan involve a different pictorial process - a process of analysis, construction and re-assembly of the image that implies a multi-faceted vision and a new psychological approach. Different from sculpture, Xia Xiaowan's suspended paintings are not molded from any rough material and, as the artist says, "despite this overwhelming sense of mass, they still maintain that 'emptiness' of painting or drawing, and that's because these glass works are also the result of mental or emotional projection".

In this sense, his painting installation alters the way the audience views art. The audience is encouraged to appreciate the artwork from different perspectives and to think about the method by which the work was created. As an integration of sculpture, painting, installation art, photography and medical technology, Xia Xiaowan’s works exude an air of ambiguity. His distinct artistic approach represents the trend of China’s contemporary new painting.