“Under the Ruins - A Small Universe of Poetry and Painting”
——Xiao Xiao Contemporary Art Solo Exhibition
David Brubaker
Xiao Xiao shows the role of poetry and painting when human society is at crossroads between care for natural life and powers of destruction. This exhibition is about a cosmic will that watches and records hands that level sources of artistic expression back down into earth. Yet, the eyes in “Under the Ruins – A Small Universe of Poetry and Painting” are not simply those of a supernatural being that is distant and invisible. Instead, as Xiao Xiao describes in prose, the will of the universe depends on a neighboring dimension that contains thousands upon thousands of small universes of unique persons who are metaverses of self-awareness.
Rubble brings wonder as it is answered by resilience and the courage of each small universe to continue artistic creativity: “every poem, every painting, is an artistic metaverse,” Xiao Xiao writes. Every poem, every painting helps to fracture concepts of reality in a way that returns you to an intimate bodily space in a present where forms of existence are reimagined. Thus, a small universe sharing poetry and painting becomes an origin of social critique. There is a beauty and even charm when such a critique expressed in an artwork helps the heart return to the roots of its own natural vitality.
By inscribing Staring (2023) and Flowing Gold (2023) with poems, Xiao Xiao sends alerts and warnings to each human metaverse living alongside: “Keep your eyes fixed” to bear witness to hands of destruction, and “Be careful! The abyss of intoxication/ the eyes of the sky are fixed on you.” Paintings made after “the earsplitting racket” express a range of feelings and attitudes. Loss and disorientation are suggested by The Sequelae of the World (2024) and Despair (2024). The four photographs document the struggle between eyes that witness and hands that flatten. The ten works of Tibet: Hum Ma Ne Ba Mi Ou (2024), first exhibited during Xiao Xiao’s visit to Cairo in August, convey toughness and durability. The images of yaks released in nature are metaphors for artistic freedom, and signs of Pyramids in Egypt and sacred mountains of Tibet are uplifting symbols of cultural longevity and sharing.
The common origins of painting and poetry are topics in Xiao Xiao’s short essay “Beautiful Poetry and Painting: The Small Universe of Poetry and Pictures.” She describes poetry as the painting of language and as belonging to dreams and imaginings that are immaterial and outside time; painting projects poetry into the dimension of things and color. Is painting ever outside measurable time? Perhaps painting is also about heart and soul, when color projects a dimension of existence in which thoughts of things are cleared way and one’s own two eyes become instead an element of heart. Xiao Xiao makes it clear: her paintings are about dimensions of nature that are in parallel, not about forms and colors as such. Seeking innovation, she positions poems in her contemporary paintings. The atmosphere of dedicated free creation at Shangyuan inspires promising experiments.
The poems, paintings and photographs of “Under the Ruins” at the Shang Yuan Art Museum are about intertwining dimensions of nature that permit each of us watch and carry the universe forward from the space of our respective realms. Xiao Xiao’s work is an inspiration for souls of small universes living on continents and territories near and far. This exhibition in surroundings of leveled earth helps each of us to savor essential roots of living contact with nature and each other.