Xiyadie
Joy
c. 1990s
Papercut with water-based dye and Chinese pigments on Xuan paper, acrylic box frame
Work size: 10.5 x 9.75 in. (27 x 25.5 cm); Framed size: 15.75 x 15.75 x 1.5 in. (40 x 40 x 4 cm)
Courtesy of Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
Xiyadie (b. 1963 Shaanxi Province, China), lives in Shandong Province, China. Xiyadie explores the formation of the self in intimate and public settings. Learning the traditional folk art of Chinese paper-cutting with his mother, his work creates symbolic and otherworldy scenes which often express his biography as a gay man, a man who married a woman and had two children, and as a farmer in rural in China. Xiyadie was born in a region of northwest China known for being the center of the ancient art of paper-cutting, one of the oldest and most popular folk arts in China. Largely reserved for women, the practice of paper-cutting is primarily used to create decorations for windows and doorways. With subjects ranging from customs and religion to seasonal landscapes and legends, traditional paper-cuts are said to bring prosperity and fortune into the households that display them.
Joy is from a series of works featuring Xiyadie’s son who died young of cerebral palsy. This work relates a dream Xiyadie had about his son miraculously cured by a butterfly-like creature suggesting a divine presence as well as Xiyadie himself.
“Xiyadie” is the artist’s given name, which translates to Siberian Butterfly. The frequent motif of the garden evokes fusions between different worlds. Particularly Xiyadie notes the influence of his grandfather’s garden, filled with flowers and butterflies, and how it echoed the secret and coded cruising sites the artist discovered in Beijing in 2005.
Provenance
Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
See also
Xiyadie at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
Xiyadie in La Biennale di Venezia, 2024
“Xiyadie: Queer-cut Utopias,” The Drawing Center, New York, February 3 – May 13, 2023