Empty Word-Tree

Empty Word – Tree reflects Xu Lei’s ongoing exploration of visual paradoxes and the instability of meaning. Bathed in delicate, shifting hues of blue, the composition depicts a tree in the classical landscape tradition yet partially obscured by a sheer curtain. The enclosed space dislodges the tree from its familiar context, suspended between the public and the private, visibility and concealment, alluding to the erosion of cultural meaning in a modern world. An active participant in the New Wave Movement, with works exhibited in the seminal China/Avant-Garde exhibition in Beijing in 1989, Xu continues to invite the viewer into his quiet pictorial games of perception. Rendered with exquisite restraint, the solitary tree in Empty Word – Tree functions as an empty word imbued with Surrealist sensibilities, which lends the painting a mystery beyond its tranquil facade.