Using special colored pencils, Beijing-based Xia Xiaowan paints on 14 to 30 panes of glass to create ghostly holographic artwork. Walk around one of these paintings and you will notice that the image changes along each shift of perspective, blurring the line between painting and sculpture. Each piece takes approximately one to two months to complete, depending on the degree of complexity of the image.
Xia Xiaowan’s goal has always been to explore, by means of expanded and diffracted viewpoints, a new and “true vision” which goes beyond the principles of physics. Since his early drawings, he restlessly pushed the boundaries of Western traditional realistic painting. His big breakthrough came in 2003. By creating “spatial paintings,” Xiaowan broke through the two-dimensional plane and created three-dimensional artwork that essentially lives in mid-air.
