Acrylic on canvas, red floral motif ballerina’s on blue porcelain patterns, ⌀ 70 cm, 2013.
Ying Xu: ‘When I started this piece, I kept thinking about the blue-and-white porcelain from my childhood, this one is Gemini Plays in Spring. Two playful twins, frozen in pattern, but somehow still alive in my mind. I wanted them to step out of their history and wander into the present, brushing against a body that might be real… or only a dream.
In this series I explore the tension between vulnerability and ornament — the quiet body meeting the spectacle of history. The figure, in soft monochrome, folds inward in a moment of introspection, while intricate blue porcelain patterns wrap around it — delicate yet enduring, like a memory you can almost touch. Faint figures drift in the background, caught between past and present, tradition and reinvention.’
© Ying Xu.
