"蜕皮" SLOUGH OFF
Xiyun Xu
Xiyun (Bill) Xu (b.1995) is an artist from Hangzhou, a city near Shanghai, China. He received a bachelor's degree in sculpture art from the China Academy of Art and is completing his Master of Fine Art in sculpture art from the Pratt Institute. His work reflects individuals' think about how to deal with mundane life during the pandemic.
Artist Statement
Cicada molting is a process that is fascinating to me. The molting signifies that the larvae are becoming strong.
Inspired by this process, my work sheds the consumer armature of everyday objects in my apartment. The process feels like a cleansing. The embellishments of corporate design are stripped away, and my relationship to objects in space is made more ethereal. Everything can breathe again. The skeletal mesh outlines delineate things but their materiality is sacrificed for the sake of a more open and meditative perception of the environment. The process is also healing and therapeutic, an antidote to the traumatic aftermath of a severe car accident in which, although nobody was seriously injured, we were shaken by the disruption of our complacent assumptions about our mortality. My accompanying Buster-Keaton-influenced video of routines performed with the mesh forms adds a twist of absurdity to the ghostliness of voided shells.
Inspired by this process, my work sheds the consumer armature of everyday objects in my apartment. The process feels like a cleansing. The embellishments of corporate design are stripped away, and my relationship to objects in space is made more ethereal. Everything can breathe again. The skeletal mesh outlines delineate things but their materiality is sacrificed for the sake of a more open and meditative perception of the environment. The process is also healing and therapeutic, an antidote to the traumatic aftermath of a severe car accident in which, although nobody was seriously injured, we were shaken by the disruption of our complacent assumptions about our mortality. My accompanying Buster-Keaton-influenced video of routines performed with the mesh forms adds a twist of absurdity to the ghostliness of voided shells.
Thesis performance
Portfolio