Evidence of Painting: Interview with Xie Nanxing

By Lauren Long

Chongqing-born, Beijing-based Xie Nanxing has devoted decades to examining the manifold possibilities of painting. His early photorealist self-portraits and depictions of young nude men in torment garnered attention at the main exhibition of the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, just three years after his graduation from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. In the early 2000s, Xie turned to abstracted forms of quotidian imagery such as flames on stoves or light cast on a wall. This rendering of ordinary motifs into out-of-focus, ambiguous entities is exemplified by his paintings of nocturnal gardens, shown at Documenta 12 (2007) in Kassel. In the late 2000s, the artist began to experiment with layered canvases, allowing paint to seep through from top to bottom and capturing traces of the painting process on the base canvas, which he exhibits. Xie’s singular visual language and methodology is an attempt to reinvent the medium and continually reconceptualize his role as a contemporary painter. On the occasion of his solo exhibition “A Roll of the Dice” at Beijing’s Galerie Urs Meile, Lauren Long spoke with Xie about his recent works, the importance of waiting, and his continued efforts in exploring his chosen medium.

“A Roll of the Dice” follows the idea of chance. What inspired this?

Two of the three series exhibited, while different, examine the concept of waiting, which for me is a process with multiple possibilities. Similarly, when a die is moving, it encapsulates not just a physical motion but an awaiting state; until the motion stops each number is possible. This is how I wanted to approach my exhibition and works: they don’t represent the end result, just like how these two series do not depict the conclusion of the scenes they depict. For my illustrations and paintings, there is no final result in the creation process. By employing the concept of the rolling dice, viewers will automatically think of this motion. The layout reinforces this as well as a sense of disorder.

All three series were created independent of each other, and although the exhibition was mounted during the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not derived from the pandemic. But looking at the works now, we find certain unique associations, which also happened by chance.

Installation view of XIE NANXING’s “A Roll of the Dice” at Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, 2020.

Speaking of the exhibition layout, the walls were painted bright blue on one side of the space and red on the other. Why? Blue and red are the two common colors of the dice. I wanted to turn the gallery into a large dice in motion so I split the space in half. At the same time, these colors are contradictory, creating sensory unease when one is in the space. I raised the wall on the red side by five centimeters, and all the works hung on this side are also higher by five centimeters, instilling a slight sense of movement and uncertainty. The works were arranged randomly too, not grouped by their series...READ MORE