 ui Xiuwen’s strength and certainty seems to have naturally transformed into a desire of home, of having a family, and in a wish, difficult to admit but naturally inevitable, of maternity. This is what the images of her last photographic series, "Angel," inspire. The protagonist is still a young girl, because at the end the spirit of people never changes and we try to remain children forever. This series of photos doesn’t want to express a social and universal disquisition but rather the awareness and the realization of individual and singular feelings. How does a young mother in China in 2006 feel?
The artist and her young model have been able to recreate strong emotions. Rows of white young girls, ghost like girls, the same girl obsessively repeated, “angels” lined up in a circle of the Hell or up in the Heaven, according as we wanted to condemn or absolve them. Alone, staring at the horizon, with their dresses moving with the wind and their feet immersed in the water or straight in front of a fire red wall with the firmness of a Giovanna D’Arco ready to face any kind of difficulties but unable to hide the incumbent solitude. Scared and worried in a procession that goes from the Forbidden City and continues on what can be a highway such as the Beijing ring road or the expressway to the airport. Blind and gropingly, with History and Mao’s Mausoleum at their backs, while in front of them is just darkness.
On a cold table, when they appear with their legs open, as they were in the ambulatory of a gynecologist or on a very uncomfortable bed. Climbing a mountain made of sand that seems to fall apart every step up, but that also symbolize growth, aspiration to an aim, to salvation and redemption. In groups, assemblages of girls in different poses, as caught in different moments of the day, with mood swings, with indecision and mutual sustenance (even though the subject is only one and the girl is always the same).
On the ground, on the back posing in sexy positions or facing us with a frightened expression, exhausted because maybe there is nothing more that can be done and no wish of reacting.
Angel No.1
Angel No.2
Angel No.12
Angel No.13
Angel No.14
Angel No.4
Angel No.5
Angel No.9-1
Angel No.9-2
Angel No.9-3
Angel No.10
Angel No.11
Related Link(s):
·The Colors of Cui Xiuwen
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