This post is also available in: 简体中文 (Chinese (Simplified)) English

Xuan Chenhao was born in Shanghai in 1989. His paintings draw inspiration from the expansion of artificial life engine, cellular network, plant groups, genome, gut microbiota. They are ever poised between defiance and deference, a duality held in equipoise. The artist attempt to convey this lively vigor that has propelled our genealogy and thoughts to evolve over the centuries through his art. The intention is less about creating; instead, it is an exertion to be freed after portraying these entities, the process rejects meaning, and the work fuels itself with menace and unsettledness. Xuan’s memory weaves these animals, plants and symptoms of life together. The march toward creation never fails to be brutal. In general, all organisms are naturally diverse in their mode of expression and their difference and sameness vary in scale. Similar to the model-crafting process in simulation games, meaning endows its power from parameters within its containment. As Paul W. Kahn once wrote in his discourse about the inseparable existence between individual and communal identity: “We create and maintain our personal identity in the very same process by which communal identity is created and maintained.”

His work was included in exhibitions at ShangART (Shanghai), E.SCAPE (Shanghai), Magician Space (Beijing), Tang Contemporary Art (Shanghai), Blanc Art Group (Beijing), SGA Shanghai (Shanghai), Yuz Museum (Shanghai), 166 ARTSPACE (Shanghai), Fosun Foundation (Shanghai ).