100 Carat Diamond

About

Overrun with mysteries and multiple readings and begging numerous questions, 100 Carat Diamond brings together recent works mirroring reflections on Xu’s identity constructed through her performative paintings and photographic prints.

Xu uses her gestures and female body to explore the realms of sexuality and desire, with her playful brushstrokes on linen she creates a fictional wonderland, and through textured photographic realism Xu allows us to peer into her world of fantasies.

Xu explores the construction of identity through a contemporary female gaze. Drawing on art history, fashion, fairytale and drag performance she pushes beyond the canvas and behind the mask to question what is real and what is fake and what is woman in her fantasy world. Inspired by the French Rococo art movement’s elaborate and extravagant style, Xu believes that rococo at the end carried void, lavish and corrupt privilege of power and female stereotypes, however she uses her own contemporary creations to celebrate the exuberance, surprise and drama that rococo originally sought to express.