Nowhere To Place Youth
By Azure Wu

The sky is filled with dark clouds, and the city is featured as a colorless silent film. The atmosphere is exhausting and decadent. A tousled dog wanders, sits, contemplates and gazes, apparently dispirited. This image is willfully daubed on canvas and works are created one by one. Depression, uneasiness, fidgetiness and perplexity of youth are all vividly displayed in her works.
 
Xiao Zheluo was born in 1983. As a young girl in her early 20s we imagine that she doesn't have an acquaintance with the intense sorrows of life. At first glance, her works create desolation, originating from the black atmosphere, pressing sky, abandoned city, endless streets and the narrow room. Here gloomy and befuddled oppression blow on the face, indifference grows stronger and communication is burdensome.
 
A helpless, stooped and weary dog barely supports its body. At intervals it has to grovel from the floor, dejectedly. In her creations the artist regards herself as a dog who is always placed at the bottom or in the corner of the painting, standing on a platform, by the water, or at the corner of a wall. It seems the dog has nowhere to go or to hide. The works reveal the artists eccentric and confused feeling in her self-awareness, and emphasizing her self-protection and control and privacy.
 
Xiao Zhelou creates two worlds in her paintings. She portrays the contrast between in and out, low and high, close and open, self and others. It is a dilapidated and desolate world outside her room. But inside the air is full of unease and depression. In Jacques Lacan's theory that the ego can never take the place of the unconscious, or empty it out, or control it, as the ego or the "I" self is only an illusion, a product of the unconscious itself. Xiao Zhelou places her ego on the top of the roof or on the shore far away. Sky, road, street, running water and platform of the roof in her paintings all create a cold distance, although it is easy to cross the border, it can't move its feet to get its freedom. The dog symbolizes an individual experience in the situation of drifting.
 
Traveling from one place to another creates for the dog more loneliness than cheer. The dog often lowers its head or turns its back. The gestures imply that it refuses to talk to anyone, its independence and weakness are antipathetic to the surroundings. Its obedient eyes are indifferent to happenings around; the vulnerable character is vividly displayed. The minute individual does not however necessarily contrast with the magnificent background. On the contrary Xiao Zhelou often puts the wandering dog in an eye-catching place in order to break the contrast with background. The tension within the painting itself is reflected in the overwhelming vision.
 
Many times a bed plays a role as the main relater, just like the castle of thought in Rene Descartes's philosophy. Firstly the bed is regarded as the ordinary symbolism of life, witnessing the process of life from birth to death. It is also endured with unique, private and strong experiences of individuals. A bed can produce dreams and yet awake people from these dreams. It has the function of rest, treatment, illusion and luxury. In Xiao's works with a bed scene a wandering dog sits in a corner. Blood, dejection, urine and bile are placed on the white bedsheet. Stains or spots are everywhere and they are offensive to the eye. Xiao Zheluo portraits a kingdom in a metaphorical way and shows sensitivity, fragility and nervousness. All these have something to do with Xiao's sentimental childhood which is secret and beyond description.
 
Just as the title "We often have nothing to say", Xiao Zheluo's works are full of her emotion melting in the air. With a strong sense of solitude it is difficult to speak out and she has no one to turn to. Her long- depressed feeling is finally let out in her works. They are characterized with the sorrow of youth and worries of narcissism. Xiao Zheluo's uneasiness is comforted by creating works. She represents her generation who are ego, characterized with escapism, dispiritment, cruelty and imagery. They are bewildered about their roles during their early developing years.
 
In Xiao Zheluo's words, "Deep in my heart my soul is afraid of being exposed to light. It lingers on the broken road yet with fortitude and struggle with my body. The sharp claw of the dog says it will tear up the world and make no compromise with it. The boxing glove, fire, knife and red balloon in their order symbolize power, light, new life and freedom. Platform, corner, bank, and other objects with sharp points appearing in the paintings all stand against the haze in the distance. In the rich grey hue, we can see the strong contrast between the light and shade, cleanness and power. Pale light casting from the top overhead creates an atmosphere of deviousness, indiscretion and negligence. But the road leads to hope and sublimation".
 
Time flies and which way our youth should go? Maybe it should be like Danny Boyle, howling freely while running and making a choice. Or, like Adachi Mitsuru, become quiet in a blaze of summer. Or, like Shuinji Iwai, be as cold as charity. Perhaps just like Eiichiro Oda, find company to become pirates to explore the world to seek treasure and the lofty dream.
 
After graduation, Xiao Zheluo continued her career as a painter, it is so natural and rational for her. She now creates works with strong passion and energy. On the road of life, one is reminded that mind becomes steady and calm just as Wan Xiaoli's singing in his song, “Things are not as bad as people imagine".