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The Human Condition -
Introduction to Xue Jiye Artworks
Xue Jiye, one of China's most important
contemporary artists, is a creative surrealist painter, full of ideas.
"I have too many things in my mind, I just don't have enough time to
paint them all," says the artist. The North-eastern Chinese painter
and sculptor captivates viewers with his imagination and visionary
power.
Xue does not like to be classified as a particular kind or type of painter. He says that it is important for artists to
depict things in their own unique and original artist’s language. Xue’s
style has evolved a lot over the past 10 years. And he predicts more
changes in the future. But the artist is consistent in the purpose of
his paintings – he paints because he has the urge to paint. And the
subject matter of his paintings emerges from that need. When creating,
Xue prefers to allow himself a lot of freedom. "I work in a surreal
style in my paintings because it gives me more space." The artist says
that "reality has become boring," and he feels numb from society. So
his mind stretches beyond reality into the world of dreams and
imagination.
In his latest series of paintings, Xue depicts
the human condition – a constant struggle for existence within human
society. The figures in the paintings are all nudes, indicating that
they are defenceless and vulnerable. Some of them are exerting all of
their energy to hold themselves up, suspended between the two ends of
the painting. In one set of paintings, the figure is gradually
restricted between the edges of the paintings until he does not even
have enough space to breathe or move. These pieces indicate men’s
futile struggle against the powerful forces of society, which is
surrounding them, as the edges of the paintings are confining the
figures. Even if one tries to escape from society, it will eventually
constrain and constrict us all.
Human beings throughout history also participate
in another kind of “struggle”: battles. The nude battling male
figures in Xue’s paintings all look the same, indicating that with no
uniforms, one cannot even know which side each participant is on or
even what they are fighting for - essentially the people struggling
are all the same. This also makes the battle timeless and strips down
war to its most basic meaning: members of society destroying other
members of society. The purpose and the result do not matter to Xue, for
there are always excuses in society for battle. What the artist cares
about is the process, the unending pressures from society to fight.
Xue's paintings have also been strongly
influenced by his own sculpture work. Certain pieces are of men
chiselling forms out of large rock masses and men interacting with
different objects sculpted out of stone. The artist, too, brings form
to solid, hard and motionless objects in his sculptures. It is almost
like being God and creating life.
In some of Xue Jiye’s paintings, tiny, uniform
naked figures inhabit giant building structures, swarming throughout
the canvas like ants, running up and down gigantic stairs, fighting,
carrying building material, hollowing out caves, digging subterranean
corridors, building huge sculptures and buildings or hammering and
carving geometrical shapes out of stone. The movement of the persons
seems directionless, just as the often monumental buildings appear to
have been built without any practical purpose. This also reflects
human societies: from ancient Egypt’s pyramids to modern Chinese
buildings, it is the workers, dominated by society, who must all toil
together to create gigantic monuments.
Xue’s paintings of solitary figures are also
engaged in similarly futile actions: suspended between the paintings’
borders, building towers out of red square blocks or sitting on the
floor, lost in thought, they seem to be involved in some sort of
existential struggle. “The people in my paintings are just like tools I
use them to build a new and different work," says Xue.
All of Xue Jiye’s male figures are depicted
nude, with muscular bodies and proportionally large hands and feet.
The nudity can be seen as a reduction to basic human characteristics,
not as an individual person in a certain time, but as a human being in
general. Xue uses and reuses the same nondescript nude male figure.
Who is this character? He is the most basic form of man, he is no
taller, shorter, lighter or darker than his neighbour. He is the man
from the past, the present, the future. He is from the East and from
the West, indicating that after breaking it down, societies are
essentially all the same. Similarly there is no indication as to the
background; the men are depicted in empty dark brown-black spaces. The
human bodies and the buildings are illustrated in red tones,
contrasting strongly with the dark backgrounds, which give them an
almost glowing quality. This helps to evoke an impression of a
visionary world, which is a mixture between Stone Age and the future;
the buildings are reminiscent of ancient advanced cultures and science
fiction movies at the same time.
Xue Jiye explains that life in society has
made us all more and more numb. “Things that were once special have
now become ordinary, boring and mundane”. His paintings take basic human
actions and put them in imaginary contexts that mirror our real
society – like science fiction. Through this the artist shows a
neutral view of society, which could almost be labelled as his own
disenchantment with existence. Xue’s works show us that human society
leads us to conformity, since when people exist together, everyone
ends up attaching importance to a uniform set of ideas and values. No
matter how much one struggles within Xue’s work or in reality, there is
no escaping basic human conditions and society.
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