The emergence of Zhao Xiaoli in the art world comes quite as a surprise to many and she has gradually turned out to become a key opinion leader of the multi-dimensional and multi-channel arts in the big data era – the Meta-media Art, which can hardly be classified into any existing category. She creates a new category of art that is hard to be surpassed in today's data era. It is a type of original art that belongs to the development process of metaverse art.
Zhao's first solo exhibition INTURSION·BLOSSOM presents a holistic picture of her research and concept of "meta-media art". This exhibition shows the strength and breadth of art communication in the digital age.
Zhao's art creation could be traced back to her childhood experience. At a young age, she spent a lot of time following her grandfather around (a famous veteran traditional Chinese medicine doctor in her hometown) and would draw around while her grandfather was at work. The visual image, the smell of herbs, and her grandfather's strong local accent mixed together. The traditional Chinese medicine consultation was like a ceremony, rendering dramatic effects barely seen in Western medicine practices. In addition, a lot of peonies and hollyhock were planted in the yard. The charm of the peony and the gorgeous hollyhock shaped the world of her childhood. It was not like a black-and-white silent film, but a vivid, three-dimensional and dynamic scene with a variety of sounds, colors and tastes. She has experienced, observed and remembered all kinds of extremely complex elements since she was a child. That also heralds the initial blueprint for her future artistic career.
"Art is about one person creating something and another person loving it." This is what guides Zhao's creative work, which begins with love and belief. Her creation is not limited to the guidance or restriction of Chinese or Western art history, nor does she care about the materials or forms. However, her beauty comes from the very unconsciousness. In the process of recording her creation, her figure alone becomes a signature element of her art.
Zhao's video images and her paintings form the two sides of a whole and complement each other. Some elements or symbols that appear in the painting will also be used as decorative or background materials in her video, which fully expresses her artistic realm. Zhao has undoubtedly become a vanguard of this multi-dimensional art.
The works exhibited in INTRUSION·BLOSSOM are mainly based on Zhao's oil paintings in recent years, which provides a physical supplement to the video works familiar to the public. Zhao is an artist adept in scene-creation and the integration of painting into her daily life. It's exactly her extreme pursuit of aestheticism that has helped to shape her artistic style today. Perhaps the only case in history can be cited is the short-lived aesthetic movement in Europe in the 19th century which held that art creation should be beautiful, putting aesthetic value over everything else. Zhao chooses herself, the most convenient theme, to demonstrate her understanding of aesthetics. In other words, she draws the self she yearns for.
Instead of depicting a scene of a real space, Zhao's painting captures close-up, leaving the background with pure colors, plus some blurring effect or embellishment. Her theme is the subject. Not only do the characters seem to be ageless and fictitious, but even their sense of the times and ethnic characteristics have been diluted. They are like eternal travelers in the time capsule, who have been fixed into beautiful memories. Clouds, the moon, flowers, birds, butterflies, and woods are all elements that arouse her childhood memories and often appear in her works.
Amazingly, Zhao also presents her sculpture series this time, which is a re-creation deriving from her paintings. Her delicate painting imbue the sculpture with strong painterliness, which reminds viewers of the colored clay sculpture in China, and the painted sculpture of Nefertiti, the queen of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton. With the iterative update of technology in the digital age, Zhao has found a channel for sharing with the help of new media materials. As a pioneer of the multi-dimensional, multi-channel art category of "meta-media art" in the digital age, Zhao Xiaoli, who embraces the masses with open arms and open studio, is unstoppable on her road of artistic pursuit and continues to shine her colorfulness surpassing time and space.
