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Exhibitions / Festivals 2020:
10 Jan - 17 Jan 2020
Solo exhibition
Entrails of some sort connect the works of Run Jiang. An umbilical cord. Or bowels. The DNA repeats itself from one work to another, like every rasp of spit. This DNA is made up of the workings of her body and the reflections of her selves.
With what appears to be quicksilver ease, Jiang creates profound images of moments of her body and of her selves. She gives birth, she has her period, she looks in the mirror, she makes herself pretty, sometimes she disappears, she strokes the cat, she holds her child, she cries, she pisses, she shits, she comes, she is tired, she dreams, she loves. And so on. There is little difference between the monumental and the mundane moments. One day follows another as a woman relates to the world around her with all her senses, makes choices, feels it with her myriad of emotions, and is present with all her multiple selves. Ever-changing. It is always she who looks in the mirror, every day and every time, but her face changes, as do parts of her person, and some days she might not even recognise herself, or even feel like herself, but, even in these moments, Jiang’s starting point is her physicality.
Jiang’s physicality and sensuality are manifest in her works not only in what she represents, but also in her choice of colours, in her gestural spontaneity. Things are messy. Food goes bad, clothes get dirty, cats and babies poo, eyes go missing, things are misplaced, and lost. And new things appear in their place, because what is also messy about the body and the self is desire, that cannot be controlled, and bubbles up, sometimes in the most banal of places, creating a rich dichotomy of Jiang’s lived experience in the present and of her wild interior world.
As an artist, one of the ways in which Jiang deals with this dichotomy is, of course, through her work, which itself stands in some opposition to Jiang’s everyday life. Time is carved out for oneself, sometimes trenchantly insisted upon, or carefully negotiated, or very collaboratively balanced. Space and time in which Jiang can sit with her interior life, which is nourished by the exterior one, but which is entirely her own. There is freedom in the act of creation, but also, and equally forcefully, in allowing this interior life to exist, as it is. Jiang is a mother, a lover, a wife, a partner, an artist, herself. Her selves weave into one another. Some she shares with others, some are entirely her own, and the excitement of Jiang’s work lies in this coming together of shared and private selves, and in the wild possibilities that this can bring, as well as in the knowing that some private selves may never be revealed to anyone.
The excitement in Jiang’s work also seems to come from the excitement that the artist herself appears to feel when facing the world, this manifested through delight, boldness, wonder, curiosity, intrigue, seduction, intimacy, love, as well as the welcoming of the full spectrum of emotions, including sadness, anger, fear, and confusion. Once again, ever-changing.
Bodies and selves are ever-changing, and as an artist, Jiang is eager to record and to explore the workings of her body and of her selves as they are and as they change, regardless of whether these moments are beautiful or not. In fact, part of the beauty of Jiang’s work lies in the fact that she isn’t afraid to look at these moments with eyes wide open and with all her other senses, and she isn’t afraid to show them to us. The question is whether we can match her eyes-wide-open courage. Whether we can hold her gaze.
*Text by Eva Oddo