Fleurs XU: I Pass Through the Pores of the Lands: Curated by GAO Yumeng

In her recent works, Xu Yahans transitions from early abstract forms to symbolically representative figurative expressions. As the narrative quality of her artwork gradually strengthens, she purposefully retains the unique creative techniques and personal elements from her abstract period. In this series of creations, she employs "Weeds" as a metaphor for individual existence. Within the constructed psychological space, it sprouts, spreads, and ultimately breaks free, extending into an imaginative world beyond the confines of reality, filled with unknown possibilities. For her, the process of painting is also an exploration of the existence of life. She transforms emotions and feelings into traces in her creative process, allowing their evolution to lead to uncertain outcomes. The imagery that ultimately emerges after repeated cycles of control and disruption represents her emotional world.

The artist constructs in her paintings not a tangible, objective world but a deconstructed and segmented spatial narrative through layers and displacements of visual elements. As the perspective advances, the space is no longer static but constantly changes and unfolds under observation. Curtains, window mullions, and fences, which constitute the main structure of the composition, form a protective stance inwardly, conveying the passage of time and emotions' sense of detachment and constraint. While providing a stable sense of security, they also restrict inner growth. However, within the painting, there are pathways for the flow of energy: backlit leaves, partially open doors, and inwardly ajar windows. The direction of light hints at the position where the observer's gaze is directed—precisely where wild grass is growing wildly. It thrives in every crevice, spreads across all open spaces, and overflows beyond any boundaries, ultimately reaching towards a bright and expansive distance.

The exhibition title, "I Pass Through the Pores of the Lands" is borrowed from a verse in the poem "The Cloud" by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley regards clouds as the most flexible entities between sky and earth: condensing into water, dissolving in the pores of water; descending as rain, breathing in the pores of the soil; evaporating into gas, rising as clouds, in an endless cycle of transformation. The central imagery in Xu Yahans's paintings, "Weeds," self-generates in all visible and invisible pores of the land, possessing the energy to break through any obstacles. Compared to the boundless wandering of clouds, wild grass exerts a downward grasp, conquering and spreading relentlessly, indestructible. "I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die." Borrowing from the imagery conveyed by these lines, the boundless wild grass similarly moves between life and death, seen from a holistic perspective, transcending the limitations of individual insignificance, and continuously resurging as a grand image of life.

Weeds, frequently encountered by the artist during her back-and-forth between ordinary repetitive life and work, displays its tenacious posture, seemingly conveying answers to the current predicaments of life. It spreads where it is visible and accumulates energy where it is invisible. In this sense, Xu Yahans's paintings also bear witness to her passage through time and emotional traces, liberating life from "stagnating in an eternal state of obscurity", extending towards a bright, unrestrained, and vibrant outer world.