Artist Kang Shixin develops a painting language of his own through images that are non-narrative and beyond definition. Iridescent colors, gravity-free space of suspension with binary structures and a multi-dimensional narrative language with images and texts fusing together – what he delineates is the primitive ecology of the metaverse aesthetics that is timeless and ageless.
Born and raised in Qingdao, Kang Shixin goes to the beach quite often. Floating in the sea, one'd profoundly feel the deep solitude brought about by the embrace of seawater, and the efforts to resist gravity to prevent sinking. Looking up into the sky from sea, the serenity (transient though) enables him to escape all the hustle and bustle of life for a while and immerse himself fully in the romantic and imaginative universe he weaves. All these account for the sense of childish innocence that prevails Kang's work. With a degree in oil painting, Kang resorts to classic Chinese painting textbooks such as the Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden to find the suspended space with no perspectives through patterns and brushworks unique to Chinese culture, something very different from the "superflat" proposed by Takashi Murakami. In Kang Shixin's work, a somewhat fragmented method of creation leads to an effect reminiscent of traditional Chinese picture-story book: independent on their own and organically connectedly if seen as a whole.
This exhibition features some of Kang Shixin's latest works. Sweet colors and sweet patterns are used to idealize and beautify adult's view of the world, seeming to inspire adults to go back and relive the innocent childhood. Just like rainbow gummies, in his works different flavors also have different colors and everyone can find a flavor s/he likes: savoring simple satisfaction without the need to put up with lengthy preaching and obscure concepts. A jar of rainbow gummies is like a collage of decentralized fragments, and each gummy is a fragment for different experiences. The fragments that each people receive come from the various instants of people's existence of the moment. There's no past or future, only the ever-evolving instants.
Through the combination of a dazzling visual effect and the spirit to confront the reality, the artist intends to build up an iridescent adult world that seems "lightweight" on the surface but "heavyweight" in nature. And this, in essence, is exactly the real life we live.
The exhibition is titled after the artist's name, stressing on the prominence of the artist's signature styles. Kang Shixin's world of art, similar to the adult world this is diverse, complex and never either-black-or-white, radiates senses of "brokenness" and "warmth" from within the iridescent colors. Some of his latest sculptural works are also on display at the exhibition. Kang constructs his sculptures with geometric images, following the logic of rational thinking and incorporating Archimedes' principle into the work in a playful way.
