Reading, 2013 (left), Village, 2015 (middle), and Juvenile, 2015 (right)
In these works, different temporal axes converge: the past is projected into the present through the artist’s own memory and the photographs from which he paints. In the artist’s focus on universal elemental aspects, both Xiao’s domestic scenes—in which figures engage in everyday activity and routine gestures—and his landscapes could belong to another era, or even to locations other than the artist’s country. His images represent everyday moments, the ordinary days that give the title of the exhibition and also of two works in it.
Ordinary Days, 2023 (left) and Dorm in the Mountains, 2023 (right)
The painter often uses burlap as a support for oil paint, and the fibrous and resistant material forces him to apply pigment with meditative brushstrokes, moving slowly as if ascending an irregular or steep path. This calm, introspective process is in keeping with his use of muted colours—predominantly the two primary, complementary hues of red and green—which imbue his works with a sense of harmony and serenity. Xiao is interested in tonal shifts, depth, and the ways in which colours filtered by memory establish an emotional connection between figure and landscape.
Breaking Through the Mountainscape, 2023 (left), Ordinary Days, 2023 (middle), and Inside the Old Room, 2023 (right)
Xiao’s compositions are structured through careful contrasting between light and shade, colour planes sometimes punctuated by intense tones, geometrical shapes with a tendency towards abstraction, and slightly imprecise perspectives. His figures are solid, as are the angular contours of their surroundings, but they are isolated, faceless, or looking away, while gusts of wind blow or mist cover a twilit horizon.
Xiao Jiang - Canal 24 horas (22' 25")
