For Xiaoli Yang, who grew up in Shandong Province, studied at Shanghai’s prestigious Donghua University Art and Design Institute and now lives in Hong Kong, art offers an opportunity to reconcile centuries-old Chinese cultural traditions and the modernizing, westernizing frenzy that has devalued them since the Cultural Revolution. “As a child of the 80s generation,” Xiaoli says, “I grew up in an ambivalent society devoid of religious conviction and [lacking] a framework of traditional guiding principles.” Her paintings and sculptures offer a way out of this impasse, using an ancient Chinese Hulu gourd as a motif in seemingly abstract and brightly patterned canvases, and sculptures that pay homage to Modern and contemporary artists.
The Hulu gourd is a historical symbol of fecundity, health and providence, which Xiaoli deploys either in horizontal stripes or concentric circles in her powerful and bright acrylic paintings. In her painted gourds she references artists like Jackson Pollock and Ai Weiwei, whose bountiful creations helped spawn Xiaoli's beautiful, optimistic works.