By Augusta Statz
Caomin Xie, the artist whose work is being featured at the Gutstein Gallery until Jan. 23, explained his inspiration for the exhibit at an artist’s talk Jan. 15.
Caomin, originally from China, received a bachelor’s degree in sculpture from the China Academy of Art, and he received a master’s degree in painting from SCAD in 2001.
At the artist talk, Caomin explained that he often receives questions about how he identifies himself as a person and as an artist. He designed this collection as a non-answer to those types of questions. This exhibit serves as a “refusal to be represented in a stereotypical kind of way,” he said.
The exhibit features what the artist calls “self-portraits with facial make-up” and “portraits with facial make-up.” His paintings consist of self-portraits, historical portraits and group portraits that have the faces of those in the painting completely blacked out.
The black and white paint that hides the face is swirled in order to represent randomness and chaos, communicating the idea that a person is not composed of one thing, but many things. It is because of this randomness that Caomin finds it difficult to answer questions about how he identifies himself. He is not one thing, but many things all at once.
Caomin also represents randomness and chaos in this collection of works through abstract patterns. The patterns are based on things that are in ruin or have been destroyed, such as the twin towers.
With the idea of randomness being represented throughout the works of art in the exhibit, the title of the exhibit, “The Still Within,” is quite ironic. This title only helps to further display the artist’s message: people often assume that one can easily identify themselves, that they are “still within,” but Caomin aims to disprove that common misconception. People are not “still within” but are random inside, with many influences and ideas bouncing around them.
This proves that one word cannot identify a person, which is why the artist has difficulty describing himself in one word—and refuses to do so.
