55 is delighted to present an entire new body of works created by Hangzhou based artist Xiao Bo. “Stay With Me” is Xiao Bo’s first solo exhibition in Shanghai.

In this new series, Xiao Bo engages nature elements in his creative process. He paints spring willows hanging in an undefined natural space. He paints snowflakes hovering amongst some grey mist. The connection between the images and the nature is seemingly strong, yet Xiao Bo’s painting lingers between the realistic depict of an object and the abstract presentation imbuing with his personal emotion. He has been borrowing the shell of such nature form to negotiate with his long-term exploring on how to push the form of painting into something more pure and absolute. The result of such subtraction is a free and relaxed approach in the action of painting for the artist, meanwhile a style of painting akin to the atmosphere of the work. Xiao Bo has found the right painting language that best expresses his individual attitude towards painting. What stays with him and hopefully also stay with the viewers is an art experience close the artist’s heart and in turn to the viewers’ imagination.

Xiao Bo was born in Hangzhou in 1977. He graduated from China Academy of Art. Since 2004, he started to make paintings based on images from newsreels and historical photographs, and is regarded as one of the representative Chinese artists dealing with photo painting.