Xu Maomao Solo Exhibition--Peep Bubble

8 July, 2023 -- 6 August, 2023

Project Space, TANK Shanghai

TANK Shanghai's project space presents artist Xu Maomao's (born in 1979, based in Beijing) first institutional solo exhibition "Peep Bubble," featuring six new paintings that integrate acrylic painting and spray techniques.

These figurative paintings depict various-sized eyes, sausage-shaped double breasts, and simplified interconnected portraits, skillfully balancing a soft, handcrafted texture with the smooth edges of digital graphic design. The warm sunlight seems to radiate from the canvas, covering viewers with its glow. The breasts are no longer the symbols of desire in any conventional sense; they are light and free, perpetually liberated from gravity, wandering toward friendly and pleasant gazes.

Xu Maomao graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts and has spent over 20 years exploring image construction in her creative career. The bright and sincere colors, dense and full flat coating, gradient spray creating the subtle volume, and smooth edges formed by collage all contribute to the clear images derived from her attempts to use drawing software to create sketches. Xu Maomao states that, "After experiencing some inner turmoil, I can quiet down and listen carefully. These new paintings are what I 'hear' from the world. I am happy to share them with everyone."

The solo exhibition "Peep Bubble" by Xu Maomao is organized by TANK Shanghai, co-organized by Star Space, and curated by independent art scholar Gu Ling.

About Artist:

Xu Maomao was born in Urumqi Xinjiang in 1979, she graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts in 2002 and currently lives and works in Beijing. Over the past 20 years, she has devoted herself into painting in her studio. She creats images, symbols, and stories that resonate with real space and art history, as well as painting freely and unburdened from her own perspective. Her envisioned characters like "Double-headed Monsters" and "Water drop Person" continually project and transform into new forms, threading through different stages of her creative practice. The dense and uniform monochromatic tones evoke a sense of slight layering inside the smooth and elastic contours of her shapes. While there're some elements of surrealism, minimalism, and even the visual texture of comics and graffiti subtly emerge in her works, Xu Maomao's paintings confidently chart her style beyond any stylistic labels.