Xiaoyu Shi

In the palettes delineating these clipped scenes there’s medieval hush and futuristic surge. Flowers on the stage, in their unposed posings; alongside other snippets – of the body, of domesticity. The mottled, pond tones evoke reflective surfaces, and depths of tone beneath. Flowers signify openness and vulnerability in a body of work concerned with the verdant terrain of interiors. “I want to see life, but sometimes it’s hard to look at life directly” writes the artist – so she draws on the induction of flowers into the visible world, to signify the close, partial, personal view. 

When flowers crop up in the history of art – think George O’Keeffe, Van Gogh, Millais’ Ophelia, and the Dutch Golden Age’s still lifes of floral arrangements – or in contemporary oeuvres – see South Korean artist Se Jong Cho or British artist Joe Horner’s work – they betoken a fresh response to a timeless subject. The drama of its transience is sublimated in Xiaoyu Shi’s haptic paintings, often of oil on linen.