Qiu Ruixiang 

By 2018, with his solo exhibition “Groping in the Dark” at OCAT Xi’an, a change was emerging in his work. A subtle, yet arresting new power was overtaking the pictures. Still brooding and poignant, full of isolation and alienation, there was something about the figures, their stance, their mood, and their inward-focused expression – the awkward yet moving psychology that the figures and forms suggested – which affected every encounter with the paintings.

While his preferred palette of tones tends towards dark – sometimes very dark, producing a sobriety that is not always easy on the eye or the senses – what is it that Qiu aims to convey is approached with instincts that are unfettered by a conscious striving for this or that style, to dovetail with this or that trend. On the surface, nothing obvious about the figures Qiu depicts places them in our time now – in fact, the garments in which they are attired are apt to infer a reference to historic, or folk costume. This is incidental: they are not there to express anything in a temporal sense, they are about the ongoing essence of humanity. Increasingly structural, the figures have a sense of solidity or weight, of formlessness or being dragged down or hanging. They are conduits for the eternal weight or burden, the struggles and ambitions to which human beings are subject. What makes the figures contemporary is this, their psychological state, which is the work’s most precious, perceptive and dynamic asset. Its exploration of base humanness, with all its fragility and ambiguity laid bare. This is its quality of timelessness, and the singular expression of a genuinely dedicated artist.

Karen Smith

2021