Xie Lei, a fresh, young painter living and working in Paris, is a representative of the “New Generation” of contemporary Chinese artists who believe in the “eternal value of Art,” in contrast to work they judge to be inspired by market demands. As such, their creative process starts in their minds and in their studios, ignoring the trends of the outside market.

Xie Lei states that “painting is an adventure and I live it as such,” and in his most recent work he invites us to join him in his oneiric journey. His paintings are the visions of an awakened dreamer. Affected by the contemporary world, aware of its driving forces, and the mediatic distribution of those images, Xie Lei captures instances of paradoxical beauty, such as a menacing wall of fire (Big Fire), or an ominously immense wave (Big Wave). He takes great pleasure in the act of painting, using liquid oil colors that he mixes himself from pigments, binder and solvent. This complete control over his medium complements his fluent painting style, allowing his subjects to emerge on the canvas through expert applications of successively and lightly layered brush strokes.

His innate fascination with nature has given birth to works such as Fading and Bird, while his sense of fleeting time and the fragility of beings, which inspire both Dreamy and Daydream, evokes a phrase from Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones: “For a long time we crawl on this earth like caterpillars, waiting for the splendid, diaphanous butterfly we bear within ourselves.”

“By entering into Xie Lei’s dreamlike journey, we volunteer to lose our bearings, our sense of existence is transported, and we shed our skins of knowledge; all that remains is looking and seeking, which leads to rediscovering and understanding what is beauty, and what is beautiful painting,” exclaims Philippe Koutouzis, Director of FEAST Projects.