“Passion”, a series of paintings in a seemingly abstract expressionist style, is both a derivative of smart social media and a representation of daily life experience on the Internet. The works are based on a great invention — screen capture on mobile phones. The abstract-expressionist free writing vividly pours various kinds of emotion commonly seen in chatrooms onto the picture. This series is not only an intense reaction to the mental state on social media, but also its release and reconciliation. Herein lies a brand new object of painting and way of representation. In a highly creative way, the artist exploits our digitized reality.
The background of the work comes from Xu Zhen's "Signal" project participants: Since 2022, Xu Zhen gives as a gift one of his “Passion” paintings to the global audience, and each recipient is invited to display the painting they receive on their social media accounts. Therefore, a new dimension of viewing is jointly created by Xu Zhen's painting and the "art exhibition" on the self-media platform, where the artist's individual actions and the audience's collective behavior confluence together to bring about a carnival of art, the Internet, and social interaction.
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