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Lot Essay
"I want the viewers to shift their focus from my artistic approach or form; instead, I want them to really see the emotional dimension of my painting."
-----Qiu Xiaofei
Contemporary Chinese artist Qiu Xiaofei was born in 1977. His installation painting, Life Drawing Class (fig. 1), completed in 2007, was featured in "The Real Thing: Joint Exhibition by Contemporary Chinese Artists" at the very high-profile Tate Modern in London, along with the works of many A-list contemporary Chinese artisans. The 7-meter diptych oil painting, Desolated Wood (Lot XX), debuted in this evening's auction, was created in 2010 as Qiu's largest-sized piece to date. In Desolated Wood, Qiu borrowed artistic forms from the Realism movement, and techniques from modernism to rivet on a formless and chaotic world mired in between illusion and reality in an intense psychological drama. Character traits of reality and memory, history and records, texts and images, and how the constant relationship between the aforesaid pairs areis broken apart and reorganized; the preposterousness of our psychological world is manifested through this plausibly irrational combination. The rich oil textures, the metamorphic and illusive unpredictable brushstrokes suspends the tableau in between physical and spirtual spears.superficiality and the formless human psyche. The multilayered, realistic illustration in his piece evokes scenes from psy-fi blockbuster, Inception, that recur in Qiu's monstrous image.
Desolated Wood is a chronicle of Qiu's emotional displacements he's experienced in life. He moved to Beijing, a quickly rapidly developing urban sprawl, from the much more conservative and sleepy town of Harbin when he was 12. The drastic change of his living space environment provided his youth upended the rich and personable experiences. that defined his youth. Qiu had studied art since he was little, and after the move, he was forced to study at a local school that accepted talented art students since he was not yet registered with the local household registry office yet. By chance, Qiu stumbled into Fine Arts School affiliated to China Central Academy of Fine Arts (FASchool for short), and immediately felt right at home in the liberal, creative climate of the campus. Since then, Qiu was on the career path that would catapult him to the ranks of elite artists, a journey that originated in FASchool and flourishes at China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA for short). While at CAFA, Qiu took over Oil Painting Studio 3, noted for its expressionism that nurtured Liu Xiaodong, a contemporary Chinese virtuoso, and began a systematic study of expressionism techniques. The discipline is shown in Qiu's precise command of the relationship between colors, brushstrokes and emotions.
The backdrop of Desolated Wood is a rich stucco gray and blue-gray, done in broad strokes; the three dark-green trees were painted in horizontal accents, and tinge of the greenish tan is subtly blended into the blue-gray of the backdrop to invoke a wisftul feel of times gone by. The foreground and the light brick-red, the bud green and shamrock green surrounding the tableau are applied in bold, generous color blocks. The composition is awash with vestiges of lightning-speedfast stroke application: the brush is immediately swept off the piece - taking with it globs of dye - just as quickly as the oil is pressed into the canvas. This motion lends a unique color texture to the piece. Colors bounding the red triangle are scraped off to create an effect of variegation. The point where the figure and the triangle vanishes forms a stable triune, artfully giving the thick yet metamorphic background an anchor; the mottled and complex chromatic details are unified in the overtone of the scene...despite the gigantic size of the work, Qiu approached it with calm and dexterity. His skilfull oil applications are fused beautifully with the deep-running emotions and energy, and the explosiveness of this artistic drama is thus not duplicable. Desolated Wood, in other words, resembles an awe-inspiring stagecraft, a glorious, never-to-be-rivaled execution.
Qiu's extraordinary talent in oil gave him the stage he has always needed for a career takeoff; with that, he hoped to discover his own artistic voice that goes beyond his technical mastery. As a new-generation master artist, Qiu intended to create a new form or direction to structure his work. Every piece, each with its own personality, documents his memory and feelings of a specific era; in his formative year, Qiu entrusted those feelings to a collection of old photos or scenes; the complex composition and multilayered dynamics in Desolated Wood act as an exploration of the subconscious; the scar-like, grayish hues, and the red scalene triangle symbolizing unrest, communicate the artist's metaphoric representation of reality. "I am dubious about the intense shifts in reality...I mean, what defines priorities...I think that these changes have isolated human emotions, and emotions are very primitive. When we shoehorn ourselves into a new image, the priorities will likely be lost..." observed Qiu.
The dictionary defines desolated wood as "the lone tree grown in a clearing". Though impressive and unique, their "reclusiveness" in the wilderness makes them vulnerable to lightning strikes, or getting uprooted by tornados and storms. Compared with their counterparts in the forests, these lone trees have to withstand more threats and risks. The two primary items in the picture - the figure on the right and the red, and the tumbled triangle on the left - unanimously convey that sense of loneliness. Qiu recalled that he was with a relative to offer emotional support when the latter was treated with psychiatric disorders; and that experience acquainted him with the unconscious realm. Noted psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud stated explicitly that the concept of the unconscious was based on the theory of repression, and the structuring of the mind; the subconscious and desires of the Id have to be subjugated by reality. It is not aware of time, cause-and-effect or reason. Further, men are often ultra-sensitive to certain phrases and symbols, triggered by specific psychological issues and emotional land mines. The red, and the tumbled scalane trianble can be causes of such restlessness. With a rapidly changing society, one's inner most stability and calm become disturbed and strained; and to survive in the uncertain, one must attain self-assurance in his fickle relationship with the community.
Confucionism admonishes us to "take life as it is, follow what its natural course, and emote to anything coming your way accordingly" (Human Nature and Mind, Book II of Selected Writings, or Cuiyan, by Cheng Yi of North Song Dynasty). Other Chinese philosophers of equal ranking, including Zeng Guofan and Liang Shuming, also expressed their regard for "emoting to anything coming your way accordingly" in their analects or writings. Qiu Xiaofei had painted on a gas cylinder in his 20's in an attempt to defy the ever-changing world around him; but he later admitted that his approach was ineffectual. During an interview, Qiu spoke of his support of "emoting to anything coming one's way accordingly." Put more colloquially, the statement suggests that the way we carry ourselves should honor human frailty: delight when happy, weep when sad, and shout when in pain. "Self" should take the helm, so that every individual is the master of his life; the spirit and the Id will then be in sync. This notion seems to be an epiphany of sorts, blowing the minds of several generations suffering from emotional oppression and sexlessness. Divesting the ostensible appearance of specific events, Qiu was capable of highlighting an ubiquotous, honorable spirit of humanity through the emotional introspection in Desolate Wood.
-----Qiu Xiaofei
Contemporary Chinese artist Qiu Xiaofei was born in 1977. His installation painting, Life Drawing Class (fig. 1), completed in 2007, was featured in "The Real Thing: Joint Exhibition by Contemporary Chinese Artists" at the very high-profile Tate Modern in London, along with the works of many A-list contemporary Chinese artisans. The 7-meter diptych oil painting, Desolated Wood (Lot XX), debuted in this evening's auction, was created in 2010 as Qiu's largest-sized piece to date. In Desolated Wood, Qiu borrowed artistic forms from the Realism movement, and techniques from modernism to rivet on a formless and chaotic world mired in between illusion and reality in an intense psychological drama. Character traits of reality and memory, history and records, texts and images, and how the constant relationship between the aforesaid pairs areis broken apart and reorganized; the preposterousness of our psychological world is manifested through this plausibly irrational combination. The rich oil textures, the metamorphic and illusive unpredictable brushstrokes suspends the tableau in between physical and spirtual spears.superficiality and the formless human psyche. The multilayered, realistic illustration in his piece evokes scenes from psy-fi blockbuster, Inception, that recur in Qiu's monstrous image.
Desolated Wood is a chronicle of Qiu's emotional displacements he's experienced in life. He moved to Beijing, a quickly rapidly developing urban sprawl, from the much more conservative and sleepy town of Harbin when he was 12. The drastic change of his living space environment provided his youth upended the rich and personable experiences. that defined his youth. Qiu had studied art since he was little, and after the move, he was forced to study at a local school that accepted talented art students since he was not yet registered with the local household registry office yet. By chance, Qiu stumbled into Fine Arts School affiliated to China Central Academy of Fine Arts (FASchool for short), and immediately felt right at home in the liberal, creative climate of the campus. Since then, Qiu was on the career path that would catapult him to the ranks of elite artists, a journey that originated in FASchool and flourishes at China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA for short). While at CAFA, Qiu took over Oil Painting Studio 3, noted for its expressionism that nurtured Liu Xiaodong, a contemporary Chinese virtuoso, and began a systematic study of expressionism techniques. The discipline is shown in Qiu's precise command of the relationship between colors, brushstrokes and emotions.
The backdrop of Desolated Wood is a rich stucco gray and blue-gray, done in broad strokes; the three dark-green trees were painted in horizontal accents, and tinge of the greenish tan is subtly blended into the blue-gray of the backdrop to invoke a wisftul feel of times gone by. The foreground and the light brick-red, the bud green and shamrock green surrounding the tableau are applied in bold, generous color blocks. The composition is awash with vestiges of lightning-speedfast stroke application: the brush is immediately swept off the piece - taking with it globs of dye - just as quickly as the oil is pressed into the canvas. This motion lends a unique color texture to the piece. Colors bounding the red triangle are scraped off to create an effect of variegation. The point where the figure and the triangle vanishes forms a stable triune, artfully giving the thick yet metamorphic background an anchor; the mottled and complex chromatic details are unified in the overtone of the scene...despite the gigantic size of the work, Qiu approached it with calm and dexterity. His skilfull oil applications are fused beautifully with the deep-running emotions and energy, and the explosiveness of this artistic drama is thus not duplicable. Desolated Wood, in other words, resembles an awe-inspiring stagecraft, a glorious, never-to-be-rivaled execution.
Qiu's extraordinary talent in oil gave him the stage he has always needed for a career takeoff; with that, he hoped to discover his own artistic voice that goes beyond his technical mastery. As a new-generation master artist, Qiu intended to create a new form or direction to structure his work. Every piece, each with its own personality, documents his memory and feelings of a specific era; in his formative year, Qiu entrusted those feelings to a collection of old photos or scenes; the complex composition and multilayered dynamics in Desolated Wood act as an exploration of the subconscious; the scar-like, grayish hues, and the red scalene triangle symbolizing unrest, communicate the artist's metaphoric representation of reality. "I am dubious about the intense shifts in reality...I mean, what defines priorities...I think that these changes have isolated human emotions, and emotions are very primitive. When we shoehorn ourselves into a new image, the priorities will likely be lost..." observed Qiu.
The dictionary defines desolated wood as "the lone tree grown in a clearing". Though impressive and unique, their "reclusiveness" in the wilderness makes them vulnerable to lightning strikes, or getting uprooted by tornados and storms. Compared with their counterparts in the forests, these lone trees have to withstand more threats and risks. The two primary items in the picture - the figure on the right and the red, and the tumbled triangle on the left - unanimously convey that sense of loneliness. Qiu recalled that he was with a relative to offer emotional support when the latter was treated with psychiatric disorders; and that experience acquainted him with the unconscious realm. Noted psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud stated explicitly that the concept of the unconscious was based on the theory of repression, and the structuring of the mind; the subconscious and desires of the Id have to be subjugated by reality. It is not aware of time, cause-and-effect or reason. Further, men are often ultra-sensitive to certain phrases and symbols, triggered by specific psychological issues and emotional land mines. The red, and the tumbled scalane trianble can be causes of such restlessness. With a rapidly changing society, one's inner most stability and calm become disturbed and strained; and to survive in the uncertain, one must attain self-assurance in his fickle relationship with the community.
Confucionism admonishes us to "take life as it is, follow what its natural course, and emote to anything coming your way accordingly" (Human Nature and Mind, Book II of Selected Writings, or Cuiyan, by Cheng Yi of North Song Dynasty). Other Chinese philosophers of equal ranking, including Zeng Guofan and Liang Shuming, also expressed their regard for "emoting to anything coming your way accordingly" in their analects or writings. Qiu Xiaofei had painted on a gas cylinder in his 20's in an attempt to defy the ever-changing world around him; but he later admitted that his approach was ineffectual. During an interview, Qiu spoke of his support of "emoting to anything coming one's way accordingly." Put more colloquially, the statement suggests that the way we carry ourselves should honor human frailty: delight when happy, weep when sad, and shout when in pain. "Self" should take the helm, so that every individual is the master of his life; the spirit and the Id will then be in sync. This notion seems to be an epiphany of sorts, blowing the minds of several generations suffering from emotional oppression and sexlessness. Divesting the ostensible appearance of specific events, Qiu was capable of highlighting an ubiquotous, honorable spirit of humanity through the emotional introspection in Desolate Wood.