Wang Ximin: Riveting Rapids
Beijing
30 Dec. 2023 - 1 Feb. 2024
Wang Ximin: Riveting Rapids
Artists: Wang Ximin
Duration：30 Dec. 2023 - 1 Feb. 2024
Opening: 4pm, 30 Dec. (Sat.), 2023
Youyu County, Shanxi Province, Wang Ximin's hometown, has historically been a strategic location where northern nomadic tribes clash with the central plains, leading to the construction of numerous castles and fortresses by successive dynasties, marking the border and confrontation. Coupled with the harsh natural conditions of the past, amid frequent wars and struggles for survival, many ancient castles, sections of the Great Wall, and ancient towns have been left behind. Although the changes of the times have altered the cultural and natural landscape, ancient rules and customs still linger, as witnessed by names such as "Kill Tiger Pass," "You Wei Town," and "Wei Yuan Fortress"—testimonies to the timeless vastness and solemnity.
Growing up in the turbulent confluence of history and modernity, Wang Ximin's childhood visual memories occasionally flash in his current creations. Coupled with the formal training in mural art, which endows him with a panoramic perspective, the past and the present, the surface and the underground, merge together. The world within the paintings seems to return to the chaotic moments of gestation, causing time to overlap and eventually recede. Spaces and regions juxtapose and shift chaotically, leaving behind endless mottling, entanglement, and complexity.
However, Wang Ximin does not fall into the interpretative, narrative, and didactic logic of mural image observation. Instead, he uses the images in the paintings as a vehicle for personal emotional expression, responding to the specific and real circumstances of contemporary existence. Deep within the labyrinth, the artist cannot view himself as a detached third party, looking down on the so-called sentient beings. Consequently, his works never depict the presence of "humans" but use animals, birds, and vegetation to bear the burden of life, pulling people into an initial dimension on equal footing—a state of helplessness, inevitability, and the struggle to break free, all within the raging fires, dust, and thorns.
Wang Ximin, born in 1992 in Youyu County, Shanxi Province, graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the Mural Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2015 and completed his Master's degree in the Mural Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2019. He is currently teaching in the Mural Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
