Soka Art is pleased to announce the solo exhibition “Roaming in Illusion” by artist Yang Xun on September 16, 2023. The exhibition, curated by curator Zhao Jiantong, presents the artist's precipitation and reflections in the field of painting for nearly four years since 2020, and demonstrates the artist's brand-new artistic outlook. The exhibition will open on September 16th at 4 pm and will continue until October 21st.

Yang Xun was born in Chongqing in 1981 and graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2005. This city with its complex and entwined light strikes his works with a chasing light, which shines calmly through the clouds of confusion. After nearly a decade of self-doubt, a redemption after re-adjustment, tearing, shaping and accumulation builds a new stage of the artist's self-confidence. If the previous Flower and Bamboo series was a process of self-exploration, the emergence of the Stone series marks Yang Xun's true psychological strength, as well as his affirmation of self and the release of his energy. It is the inner certainty and explosion that gave birth to this series. Each piece of work solidifies at least hundreds or thousands of hours of Yang Xun's concentration, meticulously using time to express time, countless present tenses to depict endless eternity, and feeling the infinite from the finite.

Yang Xun's past works have always been centered around the Suzhou traditional gardens as a clue, the works in this exhibition seem to continue the system of the garden tour, but in fact, the macroscopic perspective of the galactic universe is embedded in the microcosm of the Taihu stone, which provides a contemporary way of meditation in the gaze, the artist creates a scenario in which the universe communicates with the individual, as if it were a time-limited time-travel ticket, and the light blurs the concepts of time and space. Individuals don't know whether they're standing in the past peering into the future or in the modern age looking back to the ancient times, which is quite similar to the classical fable of Zhuang Zhou dreaming of a butterfly. This juxtaposition of time and space is like a rock that is as rounded as a rock, jumping out of life and death. The artist uses the Taihu stone as medium, and by focusing on the localized area, he takes people to the depths of the strange universe and falls into an unknown planet.

Following the footsteps of light, we stepped into the garden world in the parallel universe constructed by Yang Xun, out of the pavilion and across the pond until his eyes landed on the Taihu stones, where the flowing spiritual light sprinkled rhythmically on the stones and the surface became brimming. The delicate texture of the stone looks like a painting between the mountains and the water. When the breeze passes by, light and shadow are intertwined on the stone, and the surface texture is like rippling water, with flickering light. Yang Xun's paintings are like a dream, with dense light and floating particles compressed into a two-dimensional space. Cinnabar, bean green, apricot yellow, sweet white and ultramarine are all folded into the painting. The pure and simple glaze color tumbles crisply, like the wine swaying along the wall of the cup, mellow and intoxicated. The crystal-like arrangement of colors deconstructs the shape of Taihu stones and transforms them into different textures of skin. Whether the picture is a coat of time or a fossil of the universe, everything is mutually. Under the guidance of their own life experiences, they see mountains and rivers, forests and seas, nebulae and everything.

Yang Xun's Taihu rocks are all-encompassing, with gestures as exquisite as jade, and chiaroscuro as the chaos of the universe. One can't help but want to peek into the universe through the hole. And when you gaze at the stars, the stars are also gazing at you.