The Martyrs of Beauty, 2024-2025
Egg tempera on linen in five (5) parts
Each panel: 146 x 46 cm (framed)
Total: 146 x 230 cm (framed)

The study Martyrs of Beauty provides a rare, early insight into the artist's current exploration of the theme of plastic surgery. Martyrs are people who suffer and endure death for the sake of professing their faith. Whether the five in this picture go that far is a mystery. But their obsession with physical improvement does come close to being a religion. Some call it that, others perhaps self-mutilation. Martyr can also be linked here with the word martyrdom, because that is what each of those depicted here suffers in order to realise their aspired ideal of the new self. However, the artist does not judge and does not want to do so, and when asked about this, he replied that he sees something more heroic in the drive and courage of these figures than anything else.

About the artist: Xiao Guo Hui grew up in an old house with the rural atmosphere of a village, at the heart of an ancient Chinese city. The cheerful Guangzhou of Xiao’s memory has been completely replaced with a monolithic, monstrous carapace, the largest urban zone that the world has ever seen. In alienation, he found himself on the royal road to the experiences that have been the heritage of the West for several centuries; after an initial stay in Canada, he moved to Paris, which provided him with an index of vivid images which populate his imagination.

In Xiao's works, a simultaneous, existentially absurd hustle and bustle is viewed from above. He draws on an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of painting to create his own distinctive visual world. Only indirectly do his paintings recall Chinese life; more often, they seem to be memories from years walking in European cities. Not only the experiences of today but the entire heritage of modernity, is visible in his paintings. They effortlessly blend the early Renaissance, Mannerism, Ukiyo-e painting and perhaps a little Francis Bacon. Throughout, he demonstrates infinite patience and attention to detail. Despite all the painterly seriousness, his works always have something playful about them. As he said himself, his greatest love is egg tempera. This seductively old technique brings luminosity and radiance to his reduced colour palette, giving his paintings a special temperament.

His work has been featured in Le Théâtre du Paradis, Galerie Fabian Lang, Zurich, CH in 2023 (solo show), Amour-Propre, Galerie Fabian Lang, Zurich, CH in 2024 (group show), Don’t Fuck With Our Human, Galerie Fabian Lang, Zurich, CH in 2022 (group show) and Feast, Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto, CA in 2015 (solo show).

Represented by Galerie Fabian Lang, Zurich. For further inquiries please write to Fabian Lang at info@fabianlang.ch.