Oil，lacquer，linen and wood

220 x 181 cm.86 5/8 x 71 1/4 in.

Signed in Pinyin on lower right；titled and dated in Chinese，signed in P　inyin and Chinese on the reverse
LITERATURE World-Arts Publishing House, Beijing, China, World Art: Special Edition of Chinese Abstract Art, Chinese Version, Contemporary Art Vol 1, May, 2008, backcover.
PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner.

Su Xiaobai
In 1987, on the occasion of surging Chinese contemporary art, Su Xiao-Bai won a German culture and art scholarship and went to Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, Germany for research and further study, where he studied from modern artist master Konrad Klapheck, Gerard Richter, and Markus Lupertz. Lived in Germany for 20 years, experienced the processes of cultural differences, impact of artistic ideas, and cross-conversion, Su Xiao-Bai’s artistic creation has naturally precipitated a kind of blended life pattern, and has gradually transformed out a unique painting language across regions and full of oriental imagery.

The year of 2005 became the artist’s breakthrough year, Su Xiao-Bai had blended the essence of his homeland culture into his already mature abstract paintings. Around this year, Su Xiao-Bai returned to homeland, in Fujian he occasionally found the Chinese lacquer already having a history of thousands of years, from it, he suddenly had a idea and was boomingly inspired, subsequently he often sprays it on thick homemade linens and tiles, this started his lacquer series of many magnanimous works. He has used this medium, “lacquer”, transferring Chinese civilization for thousands of years, as a cultural symbol to transform the spirituality expressed in abstract painting language, and has thus moved toward his new creative peak. Or, it can be said that inside lacquer Su Xiao-Bai also found himself and the nation’s soul while he found lacquer.

Chinese ancient lacquer crafts can be traced back to the Neolithic Era, its history is even far earlier than the invention of silk and ceramics. The kind of things stressing contained texture and subtle quality, such as lacquer, chinaware, silk and rice paper, jointly created China’s humanistic character, among them, lacquer’s clumsy, thick, rustic, quiet and restrained characteristics are especially regarded as the highest quality learning and cultivation of Han people. For Su Xiao-Bai, the introduction of lacquer expanded new possibility and new space in his exploration of abstract art. Through research and repeated use of lacquer materials, Su Xiao-Bai has obtained an in-depth understanding of lacquer from physical properties to intrinsic cultural property, and eventually making his picture achieve the intrinsic link with Chinese culture and history, and the biggest attraction of this link lies in the spiritual depth and the sense of history and culture prompted by it, as well as the lingering Germany cultural imprinting in his works.

Rise Above It At All
His work “Rise above it all” was created in 2008, in the work Su Xiao-Bai looked for purely sincere pictorial space, abandoned depiction of nature, and focused on creating a simple, neat, and pure picture but full of details of changes, pursuing an originality of essential meaning of the work. The picture is constructed by three colored (vermilion red, mysterious black and dark green) blocks, but no conflict is revealed from the strong contrast, deriving from the artist's aesthetic excellence and spatial configuration as well as the characteristics of the paints themselves, in-between the three color systems, see the fissile layering sense formed by superimposed lacquers, the color rhyme of mysterious black slightly revealed from beneath the dark green background color, reflecting the beauty of harmony from confrontation. Therefore, its black is deep and mysterious, its red is gorgeous and grace but not glaring, and after brushed layer by layer the semi rice gray color paints present a jade-like warm and glossy texture, making the entire work reveal a simple and quiet atmosphere in modern minimalism. This kind of oil painting is produced by first soaking linen with lacquer, then stretching on a wooden board, its medium originality and his abstract work complement each other, and the combination of delicate, warm and glossy paints, and rough and primitive linen gives a strong visual impact, and also forms a unique language style of Su Xiao-Bai.

Price estimate:
HKD：1,400,000 - 1,800,000
USD：180,600 - 232,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 1,725,000