Firstly, in terms of content, Xiaowei’s image narratives stem from the rapidly evolving contemporary society. The twenty-first century, an era of information, sees mechanically reproduced and digitally collaged images dominate production and consumption.The current perception of time has a more intricate relationship with image symbols. Images not onlycreate history and reshape memory but also document the future. In The Outcast’s Competition (《受排挤的 竞争》), the artist creates an energy field.Light leaps and gathers into spheres, forming rhythmic images, while human figures blur and scramble. In the centre, three faint human shapes appear on a stage enveloped in mist. Complex lighting, chaotic imagery and anxious emotions converge into a portrayal ofthe present. A distinct yet indescribable unease is captured and projected through multi-angled lens language. Absurd competition, eerie existence and chaotic energy transformation depict the reality of an ordinary person amidst sweeping changes in production and consumption. After transforming various concrete images, the scenes attain an abstract quality. This abstractness is not mere surrealism, which releases creativity through the subconscious, but a postmodern abstraction of existence. As contemporary sociologist Antonio Negri (1933–2023) pointed out:

The environment in which Xiaowei grew up and created art underwent dramatic changes in just a few years. He was born in a seaside town in Haiyang, Shandong, China. Due to his parents’ work in freight transportation, he was largely left to his own devices, He spent time with his aunt by the sea. His childhood memories are intertwined with pastoral and maritime scenes. The mountains, woods and beaches – those primordial landscapes – provided the backdrop for Xiaowei’s visual art.

Xiaowei gradually began to perceive the profound impact of industrialisation, urbanisation and globalisation on his worldview. In recent years, a floating rocket launch pad has been built off the coast of Haiyang; the first launch in 2019 was a marvel. The rocket launch pad, mobile phone signal towers, skyscrapers of reinforced concrete, colour televisions from abroad, Japanese anime and American Hollywood blockbusters all collided in a fantastical blend of globalisation. More absurdly,the old rural landscapes, temples and farms were not completely replaced but were reused over time among the ruins, thus forming new symbols and functions. The modernisation and contemporisation of China occurred simultaneously.²

As a result, people in this region have experienced multiple transitions – from agrarian civilisation to industrial civilisation and then to the post-industrial era. These rapid changes render surrounding images increasingly illogical. While life ‘progresses’, many new issues also arise. Physiological and psychological responses intertwine in the subconscious.

Regardless of how cultural architects might rationally depict a beautiful new world and epic heroic scenes,the classical core of tragedy is deconstructed and reshaped in Xu Xiaowei’s imagery. The linear axis of time is dispersed, allowing the viewer’s perspective to be transformed beyond the image by the energy field presented by the picture. Through careful observation ofthe images, the complexity and helplessness of human nature are revealed layer by layer. Xu Xiaowei’s works,for example, All Kinds of Imagination in Life are Just Some Simple Thoughts (《生活中的各种想象就是想想》), The Escaping Soul (《外逃的灵魂》), and Coming to Save You (《来救你了》), use the language of light and shadow to compose a silent poetry of postmodern existence.

This aligns with photography art critic Charlotte Cotton’s belief that image art can uphold Duchamp’s concept – that is, it possesses the artistic charm of questioning the essence of objects:

In terms of form, Xu Xiaowei consistently seeks a distinctive visual texture, highlighting the potential of deconstructing and reorganising time and space through the language of light and shadow. Xiaowei’s uncle wasthe only photographer in their small town who took family portraits. After the photo session, the developing of the prints was the part Xiaowei anticipated most eagerly. As a child, he could spend an entire day in a small darkroom, perhaps sowing the seeds of his future in photographic art.

In Chinese families, family portrait photography holds a special ritual significance, rooted in ancestor worship and the importance of the extended family. Contemporary artist Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline – Big Family series uses family portrait imagery as a creative template, exploring collective and individual visual memorythrough painting. Zhang’s paintings reappropriatethe concept of photography, blurring the boundaries between the ‘human’ and ‘object’ nature of images. This allows viewers to adopt a critical viewing perspective,making the framework of image-meaning more open.⁴ In Xiaowei’s era, the solemnity of black-and-white family portraits was swiftly replaced by the vividness of colour images. Colour television images quickly supplanted black-and-white photos, and it became the new medium through which Xiaowei experienced visual perception in his childhood. The light from cathode ray tube screens fuelled the artist’s anticipation of big cities and the future. As an undergraduate, Xiaowei majored in painting.By then, the internet had become widespread. Online games, web literature and e-commerce were thriving in China, no longer strictly following the commercial logicof Western-developed capitalist regions. China’s rapid economic development captured global attention, and luxury brands from all over the world prepared to enter the Chinese market.

Since graduating from university, Xiaowei has achieved remarkable success in fashion and commercial photography. He regularly shoots fashion spreads for Vogue, ELLE, Cosmopolitan and Le Figaro, among other domestic and international media, and works for luxury brands. Fashion and commercial photography in China have undergone dramatic changes in just a few years, transitioning from traditional analogue film shootingto video-streaming production and short video live- streaming. The digital photography process, from pre-production to post-production and dissemination, can now be completed in minutes using smartphones and artificial intelligence.

The meaning of images has been further fragmented and TikTok-ified. The significance of photography has undergone a major transformation. Before the rise of mobile imagery, critic Susan Sontag (1933–2004) stated that ‘Photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing – which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power.’⁵

Unfortunately, Sontag passed away before the adventof computational photography. In the new era, photography has become not a method to combat anxiety but a form of acknowledging the diversity of human nature. InBurst Silently (《爆裂无声》), Father and Son (《父与子》), and Waiting for Feedback (《等待反馈》), Xiaowei’s works question the immediacy of photographic documentation, revealing the multiplicity of real space, the distortions of memory and the ritual nature of recollection. The combination of illuminated framing and the integration of images and painting expresses the postmodern characteristics of image appropriation and the contradictory attitudes of visual language towards interpretation. In Burst Silently (《爆裂无声》), light is perceived before sound by the photographer. Simultaneously, the explosive sound isintegrated into the image system through the initial image. Within the artist’s designed viewing path (inside the frame), observers can engage in diverse viewing behaviours not entirely dictated by the photographer’s preset intentions (outside the frame).

Photography’s evolution from maturity to global dissemination took just a few years, and it spreadvisual culture more widely than painting, sculpture or architecture. Now, through smartphones and social media platforms, the trend is for the digital world to encroach on the physical. The nature of images becomes more malleable with the increased convenience and speed of digital replication and dissemination.

Xu Xiaowei, through comparative media analysis, seeks to explore the unique texture of digital imagery. Beyond the general concept of digital fission, he makes viewers aware that digital replication, like mechanical reproduction, has differences in field and aura.⁶

Today’s screen technology has attained new heights. The precision of resolution and colour thresholds have,to some extent, exceeded the limits of the human eye. Many subtle changes in nature are detected and received through mechanical lenses, silicon chip calculations, digital signal processing and LCD screens. Nowadays, people can see and realise images which earlier technologies were incapable of producing.

Historically, Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) introduced the micro perspective to human society, but it was Johannes Vermeer (1632–75) who truly added artistic value to new optics. Xiaowei combinesthe characteristics of physical and digital images, exploring a new dimension of dramatic light-and-shadow art. He particularly emphasises the atmosphere in his works, adding visual uniqueness and individuality to digital images through differentiated analogue filmgrain. The grain in Xiaowei’s works is not simply fromthe digital simulation filters developed by traditional film manufacturers such as Kodak and Fujifilm; he crafts themhimself, based on his experience and the specific needs of his works. This graininess transforms the texture of digital images and allows the audience to perceive the essence of film. This is the unique visual language of an image artist. The distinctive texture of lens and digital collage images reflects the postmodern disorder arising from the current imbalance in consumer supply.

Ultimately, the universe consists of two main coordinates: time and space. Since its invention, photography has been considered a magical tool that surpasses painting in recording the past. It is also regarded as an immortal treasure that transcends death. Over the past 180 years, countless art enthusiasts have tried to replace painting with photography as the best solution for recording time. Conversely, countless painters have sought to prove that photography – relying as it does on mechanical light reproduction – is not the best method for expressing visual creativity. Thus, painting and photography compete with and complement each other. In the digital era, and even in the era of computational photography, the documentary and immediate qualities of photography are as questionable as those of realist paintings of the past. At the same time, the value and standards of photographic art become increasingly perplexing. Yet, this undoubtedly opens up new possibilities for the language of photography. It can both document the past and create new realities, thus allowing the space of memory to grow within reality.

Xu Xiaowei’s works, blending painting and photography, showcase the reality, visuality and emotionality of humanity’s quest for existence and uncertainty. He weaves spectacles and stories, existing in a space of self- doubt and certainty, and empathises with his audience. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, ‘Man is always outside of himself, and it is in projecting and losing himself beyond himself that man is realised; and, on the other hand, it is in pursuing transcendent goals that he is able to exist.’⁹