Artworks in order of appearance:
1.
Psycho Ornamental Ideal Boyfriend II
2022
Wall paint, glitter ribbon, Swarovski crystal elements, and polyvinyl acetate wood glue on wood base
80 x 90 x 15 cm
2.
Psycho Ornamental Ideal Boyfriend I
2022
Wall paint, glitter ribbon, Swarovski crystal elements, and polyvinyl acetate wood glue on wood base
80 x 90 x 15 cm
3.
Old Habits Cry Hard
2022
Wall paint, glitter ribbon, and polyvinyl acetate wood glue on wood base
80 x 90 x 15 cm
4.
Maybe That’s What It’s Supposed to Feel Like
2022
Acrylic paint, glitter ribbon, polyester stuffing, polyester ruffle trim, feathers, lace trim, crystal rhinestone, and polyvinyl acetate glue on canvas
80 x 90 x 15 cm
5.
I Hate You THVIS Much
2022
Acrylic paint, glitter ribbon, and polyvinyl acetate glue on stretched canvas
6 canvases (modular)
Each
23 x 31 cm
Solo presentation as part of “Art & Market Small Rooms”
at Art Agenda S.E.A.
Excerpt by Wong Kar Mun Nicole
I’m Exhausted, Where is He is a glorious explosion of meticulously balanced abstraction, ribbons, and glitter. It is immediately evident that Xun’s works play with ideas of campness. For the unacquainted, and against the contrary instructions from Susan Sontag to avoid defining it, camp is a sensibility that gravitates towards artifice and drama. Camp also began as a kind of unspoken code within communities that shared those same sensibilities.
Each of Xun’s pieces sport an aesthetic extravagance that leans into the exaggerated femininity, customary of drag culture. Onfirst sight, the flamboyance of his works appear at odds with the emotional tenderness of their titles. For example, in That’s the Last Time I’m Watering Your Flowers, Xun’s flowers bloom in gold glitter and a technicolor palette of green, orange and purple. Instead of emphasising finality and loss, the visual electricity of the work gives the effect of a sly grin or a hair toss, as though reminding this nameless ex-lover, “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone.”
Through his work, Xun transfigures the rawness of his emotions and experiences into self-contained, decorative abstractions. In works such as Psycho Ornamental Ideal Boyfriend II and Maybe That’s What It’s Supposed to Feel Like, Xun blatantly gestures towards a romantic ideal while emphasising the artifice of these aspirations through his use of lush materials as well as mod-inspired geometric lines and shapes that contribute to the visual drama.
Every heartbreak is uniquely personal. Despite the many ways we can share them as stories of humour, grief, or at times, growth, each romantic entanglement and dissolution is individually experienced, even for those on either end of the break. To experience ‘I’m Exhausted, Where is he’ is to be constantly aware of this distance while also relishing in the brief moments of community that come from commiserating over yet another bad date or sharing a wink over an inside joke.
Full write-up available on request.