![]() ![]() Is this a shift in the work or part of the narrative for the group? It makes me happy to look at her and obviously she is, although alone, not lonely. She stands so starkly apart from the rest of the forlorn figures, it marks a shift in attitude. MS: In the final work, Rainbow, the woman represented is very happy, sitting within a bright yellow balloon in a lotus position and laughing. And only when you realize that “death” is an intrinsic quality of life can you understand how important “being alive” is this is a correspondence: because you will disappear, you can understand sincerely the importance of dealing with “being alive”. When you exclude moral or other social aspects, you will only face one’s “being alive.” In being alive, one has to eat, to excrete, to sleep, to grow old, to fall ill, and to die and one of man’s intrinsic qualities is that he/she is doomed to die. This helps me avoid being artificial as much as possible. Now I can certainly think about many problems in a more overall way - knowing that art is limited and individuals are also weak. To live a life is to make a plan and not care too much about partial loss. To become mature is a slow process, which is proved by these works. So the relationship between human beings is very important, and you can find something warm that may exist in this kind of relationship in my works. In the natural world, human beings are physically weak however, it is just because they are clever enough to live in groups and establish complicated and huge social relations that they become the “King” of the world. To be human is to be lonely, it is a fundamental characteristic but because of this human beings become social animals. My opinion on human beings is that fundamentally everyone is an individual and the opposite side – “You”, is permanently another one, a far shore, a place you could never reach. A part of this series is about expressing relationships between human beings, warm relationships. ![]() They can only comfort each other in the group of humans with the same senses.” Such a kind of seeking and approaching is actually rather instinctive, because loneliness is human nature and to highlight it seems to be artificial. And a Chinese writer Wang Shuo also said, “Human beings feel lonely in the universe because we created a world by ourselves, we have unique senses and it is a sensory loneliness. XJ: There is a famous Chinese rock song named Lonely People, Shame on You. MS: Can you comment on why nearly all these figures exhibit a sense of solitude, aloneness, maybe even weariness? It’s better to view them as a whole to understand what I am saying completely I am explaining humanity from different aspects. The levels are not about time or any actual scenes, or even a sequence ending with Rainbow. My opinion is that only by narrating from different aspects can you approach the depth and complexity of this very indicative theme. XJ: I usually spend two or three years on one series of art works, focusing on one or two themes These latest works, entitled Naked beyond Skin, are presented as one series, which expresses different views of all aspects of humanity through a woman’s body, though each piece of work has its own distinctive meaning. MS: Should we consider the individual works in your latest series as linked or should they be seen as separate images? Collectively they appear to offer a narrative about time passing and to finish with The Rainbow. In this interview, Xiang Jing All images: courtesy of Jel X Q Sculpture Studio Are A Hundred Playing You Or Only One, 2007, fibre glass, painted, 140 x 240 x 240 cm speaks openly about the transformative and transcendental signifiers in the diverse sculptures that form her extraordinary recent series Naked Beyond Skin. Spend some time with them and a complex mix of feelings merge: joy, empathy, elation, readiness, warmth and openness or “the performance of humanity” as she calls it. These works are immediate but not simple. There was a pull, an immediate sympathetic bond which she had conjured through the faces and bodies of the group collectively known as: Naked Beyond Skin. Imagine walking into a gallery and seeing yourself in one of Xiang Jing’s sculptures but this is what happened to me when I saw something deeply resonant in these works based on the human body. ![]() She makes art objects, sculptures, and paintings designed to resonate with their viewers. Her work as a sculptor is inspiring, thoughtful and provocative. ![]()
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