Cinnabar Calligraphy, 2005

In his early years, Su Xiaobai studied at the School of Art and Crafts of Wuhan and the China Central Academy of Fine Arts before emigrating to Germany in 1987, to study painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Düsseldorf. In 1999, he returned to China and came across Chinese lacquer by chance, which completely changed the path of his later creations. Chinese lacquer is a medium that is unique to traditional lacquerware-making, and had been in use in China for thousands of years. After repeated studies and experiments involving patient sanding, buffing, and colouring, he mastered the ability to adjust effects such as shine, texture, and engraving. The nuanced shifting colours and seemingly arbitrary but actually carefully controlled imprints give viewers a concrete sense of the artist's "presence" in this work, and return to the art form's most fundamental level.