Much in demand in Europe, she just keeps accumulating exhibitions. After hanging her works on the walls of the François Pinault Trade Exchange, it is at Lafayette Anticipation that they will now be visible. Thus revealing her genius to the curious who come to intoxicate themselves with the talent of the famous Xinyi Cheng.
Five years after her arrival in Paris, Xinyi Cheng is one of the most fashionable Chinese artists of our time. François Pinault, the legendary collector and owner of Christie’s, says she is “a wonderful artist”; in fact, her works – whose color work is remarkable, whose magnified intimacy is striking, whose moments of life are of a disturbing simplicity, and whose approach is not without recalling the genius of a Toulouse-Lautrec, a Picasso or a Degas – are widely celebrated. The eyes rivet on her paintings, the mind wanders. Her brushstrokes make the viewer want to imagine a whole life for these strangers presented on the canvas, so strong are the emotions. These “strangers” are in fact the artist’s friends. She confided in an interview given to La Bourse du Commerce, on the occasion of her exhibition, that she paints moments that she has in mind, that she imagines, and sometimes memories. She then asks a friend to pose in her studio in Belleville and takes a multitude of photos that will serve as a basis for her first pencil sketches. And when she finally grabs her brush, it is the work with oil colors that she finds most exciting. For her, this is how she transmits the emotions and the human dimension of her paintings. She paints a simple but captivating gesture, like lighting a cigarette, with a sensitivity and a poetry overflowing, thanks to her outstanding technique. A boundless talent that succeeds in aiming at the heart with accuracy. And if the experience of seeing her work in real life has not yet been attempted, the Lafayette Anticipation Foundation will present its first major exhibition, bringing together some thirty works produced between 2016 and 2021. It will be an opportunity to immerse oneself in Xinyi Cheng’s universe, where emotions, desire, and human relationships reign in the greatest intimacy.
Exhibition “Seen Through Others” Xinyi Cheng
Lafayette Anticipation
From March 23 to May 28, 2022
Cheynnes Tlili