Arts Thread

In his thesis exhibition COLORING BOOK, Tianxing Xu (M.F.A. painting) presents a collection of paintings, prints, and artist’s books that serve as building plans for an imagined amusement park. Through the schematics of this unrealized fairground, Tianxing Xu explores the concept of actualization, rendering objects and spaces as distorted, fragmented, and blurred, constructing chaos via absolute order. For Tianxing Xu, the works remain unfinished without the presence of the audience. In this exhibition, the artist invites viewers to participate in the works’ completion by coloring in a book of diagrams in the gallery. Revolving around themes of regret, unfulfilled promises, and a sense of distance, the personal stories embedded in Tianxing Xu’s works are private and ineffable. Like pages ripped from a diary, each work seeks to capture the emotions of an important day long forgotten. In the works on view, images from the artist’s memory appear overexposed and spotty, as if scorching sunlight has bleached their surface, prolonging his search for clarity in recollection.

I hope that the audience can view this series of works from a childlike perspective through coloring books, and I have turned these patterns into colorable lines and blanks in the book. The audience is not just looking up at canvas on the wall but can participate in the work even if it's just an illusion, thereby diluting the artist's voice. The exhibition becomes a venue for communication, an echo and resonance when people's thoughts touch the canvas.