PAST
Xia Qiaoyi：A Dispersing Dream Journey
Joey Xia entitled this exhibition as A Dispersing Dream Journey, the show responds to the artist’s insistent exploration of the image and material languages. This notion of endocentric phrasing begins by revealing how the artist, with his distinctive approach of ‘stitching and painting’, compares the instantaneous landscapes he had captured in his diffused grid perspective with the ecological visualization inspired by the idea of ‘mind travel’ of the Chinese Northern and Southern Dynasties painter Zong Bing, thus intervening in asymmetrical viewing paradigms and geographical narratives. Joey Xia’s iconic stitch paintings include six rubbing and patching landscape works from the Hexi Corridor to the Kunlun Mountains in the main space and natural elements arranged in hanging scrolls in the outer gallery, inviting the viewer to go back and forth between location and dislocation. Here, the artist adopts the method of rubbing used in traditional epigraphy and takes the earth as a material to establish an authenticity for the creative production. In parallel, in the artist’s attempt to create a multi-sensory immersive experience and introduce the viewer to the greater macro-universe, he suspends the two flag installations in the entrance courtyard and the center of the main space to reflect/react to the solar energy and atmospheric environment. Xia’s has created most of his work through a deeply involved stance and emotional appeals, reconstructing the complex world of reciprocal observation, and understanding his cultural identity from multiple dimensions. From this, he utilizes the distant perspectives of the “frontier” and the “other” to open a quasi-panoramic, transparent rhetoric and interpretation. The three-screen video in the exhibition plays the artist’s complete field collection process recorded by drones and action cameras, as well as his previews and repeated markings of many destinations in Google Earth. The artist employs symbolic gesture to express his dismantling and resistance to the pre-established narrative .
ARTIST
Joey Xia, born in Hangzhou, China in 1992, obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, and currently lives and works in Shanghai. Xia’s works involve discussing issues related to the cultural and artistic history of his generation in the context of turbulent globalization. His iconic stitching paintings, sculptures, and installations showcase extensive research on images and materials. In Xia’s recent works, the exploration of natural landscapes and the investigation of geographical narratives have become his main themes. His field specific works combine and respond to the architectural and material aspects of the exhibition space. He examines the projection and construction of meta narrative on individual and mainstream values by stitching various materials from different time and space.
INSTALLATION VIEWS
