Artist：Wang Xueya
Curator：Xiao Ruiyun
Organizer: Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre
Duration: Oct 17, 2020– Nov 15, 2020
Opening：Nov 15, 2020 15:30
Location: No. 301, Building 2, Xinglinwan Business Center, Jimei District, Xiamen
Preface
Text/Xiao Ruiyun
When taking selfies becomes a social media carnival, the Internet has exploded in presenting the younger generation with a visual culture mixed of truth and hypocrisy. Wang Xueya has also turned the camera to herself, but she expressed a female state of being that is both broad and true.
As a female photographer who is the subject of self-portraits, Wang is not only the actor of seeing but also the subject of other prying eyes. In popular culture, whether it is a magazine advertisement or a Hollywood movie, women are often the subject of men’s gaze. How to form one’s own gender identity in an active viewing position has become a question that Wang attempts to explore.
The creation of this series of works is a process of gradually becoming self-aware. Due to the pandemic, Wang shifted the focus of her creative thinking from the external world to self-reflection. She was exposed to various indoor spaces, combining selfies with daily life scenes which ends up showing her "private theaters." Wang chose to present her body posture as a visual language. The facial expressions in all of her works are hidden. Similarly, the imprints of skin and body, the family identity as a mother and wife, and the subtle emotions are all hidden within. The negative form of the first-person pronoun in I’m Not Myself is a unique and extensive collective expression. The dissociation of different spaces seems to be a metaphor for how women are constantly looking for their position in the world.
Dream Within a Dream, another series of works presented in this exhibition is also exploring the human body. The focus of the camera, however, has turned from the self to the abstract other. There is always a piece of glass between the camera and the subject. The farther away the body parts are from the glass, the blurrier they are. Wang transforms the three-dimensional space into a dreamlike picture, replaying the tender moments in the imagination.
In Wang's private theaters, we can witness how the body flows in a spatial narrative and experience interactive installations such as “Mirror” and “Diary”. Welcome to this "theatre" and let’s start our journey of cognition of both body and self.
Artist Bio