Qianhui Xie, this young artist, has had a dramatic childhood and experiences of struggling with mental illness. Her talent is as profound and lingering as her narrow, Chinese-style eyes. She chooses to stand outside the torrent of the times, becoming a picker of the lonely, quietly watching the train of the era roar past.
Qianhui’s works are devoid of technology, pursuing the primitive sensory experiences. She believes that art is an innate existence, a part of her life long before she became aware of the concept. She compares herself to a transparent carrier in an ancient ritual, not attached to any specific position. Her works are profound self-exploration, and although she is happy to accept the public’s diverse interpretations of her works, she positions herself as a carrier, allowing everyone to project themselves into her creations. This young artist’s works combine complex self-awareness and recurring elements, guiding viewers to think deeply in a seemingly vague way. Her works cover themes such as Manchu cultural elements, images of Eastern women, surrealist styles, children’s educational toys, as well as rituals, all of which together form the clues to her creation.
Her written works are often fragmented, and filled with symbolism and leaps, just like her attitude towards artistic works—unrestrained. She once said, “No one knows where the next crack will appear on the turtle shell,” a statement that reflects her deep understanding of the unpredictability and natural development in artistic creation. Both her works and writings reveal an exploration of the unknown and a respect for natural expression.
Qianhui’s artistic journey began with a chance discovery in her childhood—a thread-bound volume of “Chu Ci” (Songs of Chu). She grew up in an environment filled with family strife, with a father who was successful in his career but emotionally distant, and a mother who suffered a mental breakdown due to issues in her marriage and children. Against this backdrop, she chose to find solace in her father’s study, where books became her refuge from reality. In one of those moments, she opened the “Chu Ci,” and although she only had a vague understanding of those ancient Chinese characters, she was deeply attracted by the aesthetic of the words, as if each character was a dancing woman, full of music and rhythm. As she grew older, she gradually understood the stories behind those words—female priests as mediators between heaven, earth, and humans, dressed in orchids and jade ornaments, singing and dancing. This discovery made her realize the deep connection between herself and words and sparked her love for art.
Qianhui’s artistic creation is a hymn to words, colours, and senses. She sees the world as an interconnected network, rejecting an isolated perspective. Her works are deeply influenced by her family background, blending the intense violence and bloody colours of Italian lead-yellow films with the obedience tests reflected by the Chinese dolls on the East Asian production line. These elements interweave in her art, creating a high degree of saturation and a strong sense of disconnection from the real world. Her works are a re-weaving of traditional narratives, transforming personal experiences into a unique visual language that includes a deep reflection on cultural conflicts and identity recognition. Through this language, Qianhui not only shows the depth of personal emotions but also explores broader social and cultural issues, inviting viewers to find resonance in her works and experience a dual exploration of the senses and the soul.
In her work “Red Beans, Ants, Strobes, and Nutmeg,” Qianhui prints fragmented everyday images onto fabric, covering silicone eggs, red hair, or the scars on her left arm left by mental illness. She pastes these images on every corner of the space, attempting to “length, width, and height” to infinitely extend, magnify, and adjust the exposure parameters of the scar images, turning the entire space into a proliferation of the artist’s skin tissue. Under the gaze of over two hundred onlookers, Qianhui engages in an improvisational art performance, connecting the scars on different printed images with a marker pen to form a non-two-dimensional contour map. She arranges traditional Chinese medicinal materials such as “goji berries, mulberries, and dendrobium” along the lines of the scars, like sewn coordinates. Wearing high heels in the area composed of her skin tissue printed images, she writes ambiguous words with acrylic, and the candles on the ground burn Qianhui’s hem. She looks up, holding scissors and breathing deeply—each improvisation triggers her asthma. In a trance, she cuts off the burnt hem and hangs it in the centre of the space. The young individual stands in the centre of hundreds of people, feeling increasingly disconnected from the crowd, the inside and outside of poetry. She firmly believes that her art is self-exploration, and she still has inexhaustible gold to mine. She picks up the acrylic and painfully writes on the wall, “Art is not a priesthood.” This is the phased conclusion that Qianhui chooses to leave for this work. Qianhui’s latest ongoing performance work “Narrow Gate” combines traditional Western lead-yellow film elements with conventional Chinese paper-cut art in visual and lighting design. She replaces the white unicorn in Western mythology with a Chinese paper-cut black horse, personally designs the scene, and serves as a model, showing her love for baroque, material worship, hoarding, and gorgeous style, which is a reassuring existence for her. The costume design is made from the re-dismantling and splicing of many of her clothes, with the main shape drawing on the Pope’s robe and sewing a tail. Her arms are fixed through sleeve covers, decorated with independently made kimono sleeves, and at the same time, the leather elements are cleverly improved into an Eastern-style waistband. Her fashion enlightenment comes from Jean Paul Gaultier and the pirate era of Dior, she appreciates the grotesque nationality and tribal shaman elements, as well as the Western interpretation of the Eastern face, which brings her a beauty beyond cultural gaze. As a woman with a typical Eastern face, Qianhui often encounters the stereotype of a “Chinese doll” or “Oriental Princess” and other stereotypes as a student. She loves her distinct Asian features but refuses to accept the “Madame Butterfly” style of fantasy and fanaticism towards East Asian women in Western culture. She believes that any civilization and gender should not become a specific exotic collection. Therefore, she never needs to prove herself because of her iconic narrow eyes – often seen as a stereotype of Westerners towards Asians.
“Art has no borders”, Qianhui, wearing a long skirt, in the space to draw a stretching “narrow door”. Light shadow and curtains blur the boundaries of the site, turning it into a floating box, a space beyond reality. Standing in front of this two-dimensional “narrow door”, she feels an illusion, as if the door behind can be pushed open. On the other side of this door, there is no quarrel between her parents in childhood, only the quiet world she created herself.
Artwork: Eldorado“Her golden rim”
Media: Performance/ Experimental Film
Artist: Qianhui Xie
https://youtu.be/6ul-ucq_LLA
Published By: Aize Perez
