Born in Sichuan province, Xiang Guohua (向国华) graduated in 2008 from the painting department of Sichuan Fine Arts Academy University in Chongqing, where he currently teaches. Although trained in traditional Chinese ink painting, Xiang has recently been working in the medium of oil as well as other ‘Western’ materials such as acrylic and plexiglass. His work combines the aesthetics of traditional Chinese culture with experimentations in material and technique. Branded, pierced or displaced, Xiang’s works share a common characteristic in their deconstruction/destruction of formalism and strong references to tradition. For example, his series In Between Finite and Infinite and Turning a Blind Eye use incense to burn small holes in rice paper and acrylic engraving to create landscapes of natural scenery. Xiang Guohua seeks a transformation of form and a new image in aesthetics via a subversion of material, tradition and expectations. His creations are thus subversions of previous memories, the results of reviewing tradition from a distance, through a contemporary, multicultural lens and reinterpreting the aesthetics and meanings in regards to his own generation. Xiang Guohua’s art is a re-creation of the old, deconstructing existing structures such as famous Chinese ink paintings or literati poems. While deconstructivists usually focus on the context, Xiang Guohua works on the form, creating visual effects via a variety of techniques including cutting out, incising, slicing and reconstructing. In his series Where is the Meaning?, compositions in oil paint are of traditional master paintings that have been cut into strips, segmented and staggered. To reach the “Chinese characteristics, he tears images into pieces and plays with two-dimensional space as a jigsaw puzzle, using branded holes and displacement to thrust a sense of uncertainty and tension into his works. undefined

More on Google