Beijing Artist Xue Ruozhe’s ‘Masterful Hand’ Joins Massimodecarlo
The Italian gallery called the artist a leading voice in a new generation of Chinese painters. Save to My Ocula
Beijing artist Xue Ruozhe is bringing his hyperreal paintings to Europe as he joins Milan-founded gallery Massimodecarlo.
The gallery, which has shown Xue’s work in its Beijing and Paris locations, called him ‘a leading voice in a new generation of Chinese painters’, adding that his ‘masterful hand’ allows him to ’[unfold] the flow of time within the stillness of the painted surface’.
Massimodecarlo’s Beijing director Lu Chao said that he was ‘impressed by Xue’s profound painting skills’, which invite audiences ‘to contemplate on various of cultural phenomena in modern society’.
Xue showed similar enthusiasm, telling Ocula he was delighted to further his collaboration with Massimodecarlo, adding that the gallery is ‘a pleasure to work with’.
‘I look forward to bringing my work to wider audiences through our upcoming projects,’ he said.
Born in 1987 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, Xue studied oil painting at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, where he obtained an MFA in 2015.
His recent work, comprising mostly portraits of women suspended in a wash of muted lavender-greys, inquires into ‘the boundaries of reality’, per the artist, and explores ‘the reenchantment’ of figurative painting as a contemporary medium.
Xue is the recipient of Royal College of Art’s Neville Burston Prize for exceptional painting graduates and the Tom Bendhem Prize for Figure Drawing at RCA (both 2015). In 2022, he was shortlisted for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize recognising artistic talent in the Asia Pacific region.
The gallery will bring Xue’s work to Art Basel Hong Kong this March, before a solo exhibition at its London location next year.—[O]
Main image: Xue Ruozhe. Courtesy the artist.
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