Galerie Gabriel Rolt

Gabriel Rolt presents A Childish Nothingness, the first solo show in the gallery by the Amsterdam based, Chinese artist, Xue Mu.

Comprising paintings, objects, photographs and a substantial body of large scale drawings, A Childish Nothingness utilizes elliptical tactics and an ambiguous aesthetic in order to achieve an extreme artistic ambition – to create work whilst avoiding the familiar, worn-out forms imposed by the modern world in which we live.

Her major series of large-scale drawings, entitled Black Diamond, exemplifies her approach. Using paper, charcoal and tape, Mu developed a physically demanding process of mark making that has resulted in the works on show. In the drawings depth and complexity are pictured and in doing so visually alludes to the, perhaps unrepresentable, structure of thought and creativity. This almost synesthetic approach extends into the strong influence of music on Mu’s practice and the Black Diamond series in particular. She references Early Dutch Electronic Music from Philips Research Laboratories 1956 – 1963 as especially inspirational along with the music of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, The Ramones, Enya, Delia Derbyshire and Felix Kubin. Several of the Black Diamond drawings were made in direct response to specific tracks.

Xue Mu was born in Nanjing, China in 1979 and studied at the Nanjin Art Institute followed by a MFA at the Dutch Art Institute in Enschede. Currently she is as a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.