From East to West – Liu Xiao Xian

The exhibition titled ‘From East to West’ by designer artist Liu Xiao Xian was held recently at the RMIT Gallery. Liu Xiao Xian came across to Australia as a refugee over 19 years ago in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. This was Liu Xiao Xian’s first major solo exhibition.

One look at Liu Xiao Xian’s designs and it is evident that his work is about the western world meeting eastern cultures, Chinese culture to be precise. However, his work is not as straight forward as you would like it to be. It takes a bit of time to see where and which angle his coming from.



My favourite piece of work of his was ‘Our Gods’, which was basically two very large images of Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. Each one of these images was made up of hundreds of small scale images of the same large image. It’s impossible to comprehend the talent and work Liu Xiao Xian put into creating that piece of art. There were two small sculptures of these two images as well. They were precisely crafted out of porcelain that was over glazed with gold and under glazed with copper. When taking a closer look at these two Gods, it is clear that Liu Xiao Xian portrays many differences in them. It shows the difference between the western God from the eastern God. It shows happiness and sadness. While Jesus Christ is shown with a crown of thorns, Lord Buddha is portrayed smiling or laughing. It also shows that one is a religion and one is a philosophy.





Another piece of art I found very interesting was the two very large sculptures that was placed on display in front of a bright red background. Not too sure of the symbolism of the background colour. My understanding of these sculptures was the difference between western medicine and eastern medicine. He shows how the eastern world uses a more natural approach to medical treatment. The holes in the eastern woman symbolizes the use of acupuncture as a pain reliever as appose to using western medicine. It is hard to say what Liu Xiao Xian tries to tell you when it comes to the stance of the two figures though.



Another amazing piece of work was the very large eye catching and dominating ‘reincarnation portrait’ that greeted you as you walked into the exhibition hall. This was titled ‘Reincarnation – Mao, Buddha and I’. This was made up of 300 panels of C-type photographic prints, each 300 x 200cm in size.

There were many portraits on display showing a Chinese family sitting in the foreground of a picture that is been taken in the western world. There was a Chinese backdrop held up when these pictures were taken. What I gathered from this, and I think what Liu Xiao Xian is trying to say through these pictures is that, no matter where in the world you choose to live, you will always take a piece of your past, culture and simply a piece of home with you.







Trying to look intellectual...

...and failing miserably!!!

The Great Wall of China was another work of art that caught my attention. Liu Xiao Xian took a series of photographs of plates outside an abandoned plate factory in southern China. Inspiration for the creation of the Great Wall of China was drawn from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, the home of porcelain production. To create this piece he systematically photographed every inch of the dumped plates using a process he describes as manual scanning. With the aid of Photoshop he assembled the 500 odd images to recreate the scene that he originally came across.

All in all this exhibition was a amazing look into the mind, thoughts and life of an amazing designer.