THE JOURNEY OF A SCULPTOR
Although Xiang Jing is known for her sculptures of female nudes, looking more closely at the work she has done over the years, more diversity is apparent. From the early period of dramatising the uneasy growing-up experience of adolescents, to the bold depictions of naked women that explore female identity, she leads the viewer on a journey that enables one to recognise oneself in the girl, the woman and the human being. In her recent series, Xiang Jing reflects on the world around herself, casting her gaze on the human condition within Chinese society. Instead of endowing the figures with experience-based narratives as in the past, she adopts a new approach in which two groups of figures — acrobats and animals — collectively perform a theatrical allegory. ‘Naked’ is a keyword in Xiang Jing’s work, but this is not the nakedness of sexual attraction; it is the nakedness of baring the soul. It is a part of her visual language that reveals the pain and the struggle of her subjects. The artist comments, “I cannot allow evasion or excuses; my work is to confront the plentiful weakness of mankind. This is where my fascination lies, but it is also a terrain that is ever crumbling.”
“If I was not doing art, I would be a madwoman,” Xiang Jing once said. She is sensitive, sharp and possesses excellent eyesight that allows her to scrutinise things in minute detail. These are good qualities in an artist, developed in Xiang Jing from an early age. She felt the mystery of life from her youth, explaining to the writer, Lin Bai, that she was occupied then with two puzzles: If a person has no choice over birth and death, what is the meaning of one’s being in this world? And why in particular was she was born a woman. “I considered those questions painfully for many years. In truth, I could not accept my existence.”
[i] Figures of bewildered children and young girls in various twisted poses comprised her early series of sculptures. She did not use models. The images derived from her observation and thoughts that were in her mind. Once artistic creation became the vehicle to release her abundant emotions, she steered it forward to explore what life has in store for us.
Xiang Jing roots her work directly in her own