XIE MOLIN

Since his first self-made three-axis painting machine inspired by cutting plotters, Xie has dedicated himself to re-approaching painting through the act of “making.” Often in his work, the image embodies an intricate interplay between artist, machine, and canvas through Xie’s intuitive engagement with form. In White, however, unified in dimensions and colour—the colour of the probably purist form, the group of eight paintings spotlight a series of progressive transformations that advance to the breathtaking proximity between the paralleling vertical lines, approaching the limits of the relationship between the rigid machine and the fluid paint.

Titled White on White in the Digital Age, the latest series appears even more radically objective when deprived of the chromatic rhythms in Xie’s past works. Rather than something inherent to “the object,” it is a permeating sense of objectivity exuded from the “making”—the mechanical and numerical control and the formal and ideal deduction. And it is this “making” with the modern-day approach where Xie dives deep into the ways of constructing and knowing “the objective” overarched by modernity. As he iterates, “Rather than deriving images from reality, I incline to explore and create with the methods which turn out as works that connect to reality.”

The core of this series lies in the eternal conflicts and paradox within the ways of constructing and knowing “the objective.” For Xie, “white” is a symbol of inherent paradox: “There is no absolute white; white always entangles with black.” Under varying light and angles, the paintings in white exhibit starkly contrasting visual effects: when moving around the pieces, the interplay of horizontal and vertical lines creates opposing light-dark relationships seen from two different sides; while at certain stances, the square in the square canvas together with the intricate details vanish, rendering the canvas seemingly empty. Somewhere between material white and shifting shadow, complex weaving and minimalist forms, and digital simulation and sublime light shimmers Xie’s evocative read on the natural duality in Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi: “When yang reaches its limit, it becomes yin; when yin reaches its limit, it becomes yang.”