Liu Xiaohui’s new works have gradually switched from a painting style with a hint of narrative to an exploration of the ontology of painting which is more reliable and realistic. The distinct order he has once established are at once challenged.

In his recent works, the movement of dressing or undressing makes the overall compositions destabilized for the first time. Abrupt plants (in other words, the color blocks in green, yellow and black) “grow” in a paradoxical world where truth and falsehood are hard to distinguish. They are alienating object that competed for space on his canvas.

For the artist, the subjects of paintings are not clearly constructed by himself; they are more like the outcome of the artist’s accumulation of experiences. Before touching on the “truthfulness”, he continues to confront the struggles and breakthroughs of the individual from the external world, which also reflect his repetitive query of “truthfulness”. From this perspective, every brushstroke on canvas becomes a self-imposed mystery.

Detail pictures: