雨

Under globalization, some striking collisions emerge in the arts field between the East and West, both in terms of culture and the language of artistic modeling. By employing the wooden medium, the black and white language, and his comprehension of "spirit" in traditional Chinese philosophy, Xu Xiangtong brings about and explores the concepts of "negative form" and "virtual image" in artistic modeling, to construct a new language system of artistic modeling. Basing on the Chinese traditional philosophy's apprehension of "spirit", Xu believes that the whole objectively existing creation observed through our eyes is immersed amidst the atmosphere and the universe, and forms a "spiritual" and organic connection with the surrounding, including the atmosphere and the universe. Therefore, when we try to capture the creation in drawing, it is not enough to focus on reproducing superficially the tangible body and frame of the object, we should focus on the mutually survival relationship between object and spirit, and between object and atmosphere, it is also necessary to focus on the creation and its spirit of cyclic vitalization, to place emphasis on the "negative form" and "virtual image" in the picture, in doing so, we may obtain profound apprehension on Nature, the universe and the essence of life. The unique piece of "wood" work brings the rich layering of ink to the full play, and produced fertile "form" and "image" amidst a state of chaos; Xu has made full use of the "emptiness" of a large plane, he also tries to start with "big form and structure" and employ the principle of "examination at short range", as a result, a strikingly strong overall momentum and visual tension are created in the picture.