Xi Jiu: Forging The Swords

Beijing-based artist Xi Jiu painted her visual interpretations of Lu Xun’s 1926 short story Forging The Swords for a 2020 publication, which are being shown at PHD Gallery. Though the works show the classical fine lines and colour blockings of Chinese gongbi paintings, Xi Jiu also uses softer, phantasmagoric colours in her scene-by-scene miniatures, lending the narrative a softer, feminine, and more dreamy tone, despite the story’s themes of violence, revenge, and nihilism. If literary works from China’s New Culture and May Fourth Movements are your thing, then you need to check out this exhibition for an expanded view into Chinese social realism in art.