Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art & Urban Planning proudly presents Meta-Nature, a major solo exhibition by Xue Song, co-organized by Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery and curated by Dr. Jiang Jun, an art critic and independent curator. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s "The Dao from Nature" series, created since 2019, and features over 60 paintings and archival materials, offering a comprehensive overview of his 40-year artistic journey, from Pop Art collage to abstract expression.
The exhibition title, Meta-Nature, originates from Xue Song’s "The Dao from Nature" series, which explores the fusion of multiple perspectives on nature — physical nature, cultural nature, and digital nature in an intertwined coexistence. The title also carries a dual metaphor: it embraces the philosophical principle of "following nature", resonating with the Eastern ideal of "harmony between man and nature" ; on the other hand, it deconstructs traditional notions of nature, reflecting the divide between the natural and the artificial in modern civilization. This juxtaposition encapsulates the contradictory yet unified essence of Xue Song’s artistic expression.
The exhibition is divided into two thematic chapters:
Chapter One: Cosmology
This section focuses on Xue Song’s “The Dao from Nature” series, exploring the concept of cosmology. Arranged in the order of the seasonal solar terms, these works reflect the artist’s philosophical journey beyond material concerns into a transcendent realm, embodying his artistic shift from “engagement with the world” (入世) to “transcendence from the world” (出世).
Chapter Two: Anthropology
This section revisits Xue Song’s Pop Art works from 1990 to 2019, alongside a chronology of his artistic career and archival materials. The sub-theme “Anthropology” represents the relationship between Xue Song’s artistic evolution and China’s modernization and urbanization, implying his deep engagement with contemporary social realities.
Born in Dangshan, Anhui, China, in 1965, Xue Song graduated in 1988 from the Shanghai Theater Academy. Since then, he has resided and worked in Shanghai. Striving to break free from the constraints of traditional realist paradigm, his early works were largely influenced by Expressionism. The fire accident in his Shanghai studio in 1990 led him to develop his signature techniques of “burning” and “collage”, incorporating the imagery of ashes and burned fragments to forge a unique visual language inspired by international Pop Art. He has amassed a vast collection of old books, photographs, renowned landscape paintings, and calligraphy, all of which became a wellspring of collage materials. From 1993 to 2018, his works can be divided into six themes: Global Pop, Local Pop, Metropolis, New Landscape, Dialogue between the East and West, Text and Calligraphy.
His collages reveal the rapid rise of modernization, urbanization, and new consumerism by reconstructing emblems of globalization, such as international commercial symbols, popular culture, and fashion icons, or juxtaposing magnified figures against miniaturized cityscapes. Using the concept of “rebirth from the ashes” as a metaphor for the profound changes in both China and the world, he has captured the zeitgeist of China’s forty years of Reform and Opening-up as well as the bewilderment, hope and hopelessness of those caught in these changes.
The contemporary expression of traditional Chinese art as well as the fusion of ancient and modern, Eastern and Western cultures, are at the core of Xue Song’s practice. He transforms the traditional landscape into a formal framework, interweaving diverse elements, such as Western art history and cityscapes, in his collages. He also draws inspiration from the rhythmic vitality of calligraphy, reinterpreting conventional forms with his distinctive approach, evoking renewed resonance and striking visual experiences.
After 2019, Xue Song’s artistic practice underwent a transformation, shifting from figurative Pop Art to abstraction and continuing to challenge formal constraints. His “The Dao from Nature” series draws inspiration from the Dao De Jing: "Man follows Earth; Earth follows Heaven; Heaven follows the Dao; and the Dao follows nature.” The "nature" here is a continuous flux, referring to the original appearance of things and emphasizing the compliance with the laws of nature. It manifests as the unfolding process of the universe.
Born and raised in Dangshan, Xue Song was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi from an early age. "The Dao from Nature" series marks his return to simplicity after experiencing the hustle and bustle of the metropolis Shanghai, a kind of nostalgic return, and also a poetic imagination of the Daoist concept of "harmony between man and nature." Its abstractness dissolves the inherent contours of traditional landscape paintings and directly approaches the spiritual pursuit behind the art form.
Imbued with “spirit resonance”, the abstraction in Xue Song's paintings is evidently rooted in Chinese culture. With acute sensibility and imagination, he captures the essence of the universe and all things in the natural world, revealing the authentic state of life in its quietude. In his work of more than 30 years, there is no absolute abstraction nor absolute figuration; they are not mutually exclusive but complementary to each other. Imageries like water, fire, ice and bamboo etc. are still identifiable in his paintings, indicating that there is no rupture or shifting of direction between the abstraction in his "Text and Calligraphy" series and that in "The Dao from Nature" series; instead, it is a "natural" transition. Harmoniously blending the East and West in the delicate balance between figuration and abstraction, his present practice is becoming ever purer and liberated.
