Exhibition review by Irina Ideas

Body’s orientation is a topic that goes deep into the plane of existential sense of self, something so universal and yet just like Karma not immediately obvious because often times in life the relationship between things seem coincidental until they are so obvious and powerful that only an art form can express. Qin Jiao Jiao’s art explores the furthest corners of our minds, a line that divides between now and then, you and me, dark and light, a special type of dualism that is dancing in the rhythm of cause and effect, portraying the encounter, connections and disconnections, in this wonderful phenomenon we call reality. There is an ancient wisdom that suggests: “do not seek understanding of things but relations between things and you will understand the world”. Upon entering the world of Qin Jiao Jiao, the first physical association one has is of the corners, the edges of our habitats, the rooms in the houses, the corners of the walls, but also it is the reflection of the most inner habitat we have and that is our mind. Sometimes what we see and build around us, to accommodate our bodies reflects the internal world of thoughts, the habitat of our mind, with unlimited possibilities and iterations, just like a perpetuum mobile it never stops, this mechanism of our awareness, it is on the quest of a greater understanding of things.

Sometimes we like to call it a process of acquiring a higher consciousness as a sentient beings on a mission of building higher integrity and becoming a genuine human, one of the most important tasks. Jiao Jiao’s thinking process is touching upon these topics very strongly, with the focus giving priority to the form over color, she brings out the structural elements, emphasizing on the interaction and connections between the things rather than looking at things as they are in themselves. A very good analogy that comes to mind is a helix of a human genome, because when we look at the development of understanding in the field of genetics and how only the genes of integrity get the green light to go ahead towards the next generation, we understand the depth and importance of the ability to distinguish between the white and black. In Jiao Jiao’s art the line that divides the two worlds, seems to be a compass, in a way a green light, an orientation and a road towards this invisible integrity so deeply present but yet elusively mysterious.

One can’t help but think of Karma and the subtle laws prevailing all the existence, just like the laws of physics make the planets turn in a certain way as a result of relationship with the larger objects, so are our actions as humans always in interlocked relationship of everything we do. Qin Jiao Jaio is pushing the boundaries and exploring the world of action and reaction, this very balance. Sometimes the gravity is so strong on one side of the painting that the other is barely able to keep the balance, but it does, it has the ambition to keep afloat. At other times the balance between the sides is so strongly self reflective that the outside reality, the gravity of larger objects has no power. There are only two sides locked in the eternal embrace of cause and effect, karmic laws of entangling and disentangling and it is a delightful experience to look at the intricate game of life unraveling on the canvas with such a strong line of thought. The spectrum of the topics in the paintings range from the highly strong, destiny like questions relating to the relationship with people to the most subtle and almost invisible relation we have with things and environment, birds, casual objects of our every day life, all of which have the most significant role in the universe no matter how small or how big.

Archimedes said: “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world”, analogous to this Qin Jiao Jiao’s collection is in that lever and the karmic compass is exactly in the line of the paintings, dividing the world and the dualistic nature of reality becomes so obvious that one can’t help but wonder about the way things are in a much deeper sense entering the level of what is it that goes behind what we see, what immediately captures our attention and what is behind it truly. There is a process of unraveling in order to get to the core and a truth, often times appearing black, white and gray.