This is the second time that Xia Xiaowan has collaborated with Tang Contemporary Art on a solo exhibition, following his “Rotation” retrospective at the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum in 2015. Curated by Cui Cancan, this show will present Xia’s latest large-scale pastel work Ark, as well as other works from selected series by the artist since the 1980s. Together, they highlight the theme of eternity, boundless vitality, and the diverse artistic explorations that have characterized his 40-year career. Xia has an expansive body of work covering a diverse array of themes and categories. These subject matters included personal life experiences, mythology, and the histories of Eastern and Western civilizations. He has also experimented with a range of mediums, including oil painting, drawing, pastel, sculpture, and painting installation. In his idealistic Wasteland series in the 1980s and his self-reflections in the 1990s, he has discovered freedom and transcendence within his own life; his later spatial paintings then engaged with visual experience, viewing perspectives, and the history of forms. Throughout the course of his career, Xia Xiaowan has blended and immersed himself in dreams, hopes, illusions, and realities. His art is permeated with the ambition to break through the boundaries of painting, pursuing for the infinite possibilities granted by freedom.

Gallery address: 10/F, H Queen’s, Central