In Su Xiaobai’s hand, lacquer — a thousand-year-old plant material and a symbol of Eastern culture — embodies the concept of existence, posing a philosophical discourse on our daily life through the artist’s poetic transformation. The artist paints layers of vibrantly colored lacquer in a structural and balanced composition, rendering a three-dimensional momentum. The seemingly arbitrary, yet meticulously deliberate handling of visual forms reveals the artist’s pursuit of aesthetics and his personal sense of reinvention.

Su’s latest series is suffused with a crispness accentuated by the bright and light colors that dominate his works. The layers of lacquer coalesce into a textured grace rendered by the repeated act of overlaying and washing away the antediluvian medium. The textured grace reverberates with a rebellious spirit that has come to define Su Xiaobai’s practice in the tumultuous year — an urge to gallivant in a realm manifested through the sheer force of artistic creation.

SU XIAOBAI