(Photo provided to China Daily)
Since 2009, Xiang has been using fewer female forms, especially nude, in her works.
Now she explores the predicament of people in the series Will Things Ever Get Better?
Her subject matter includes a sheep, an elephant, a horse and an imaginary creature based on a horse, deer and wolf.
She crafts these sculptures to show the instinctive and tender side of human nature that wishes for peaceful days.
She has also created huge works inspired by many traditional stunts in Chinese acrobatics, such as performers stacking up on each other to form a human pyramid as a showcase of their balancing skills.
Xiang uses the acrobatic performance as a metaphor for the fact that each person is required to play a certain role in a social structure.
She says the complicated and sometimes dangerous stunts suggest a belief that things can be done no matter how difficult they are.
With this series, Xiang asks herself and the audience how things can become better.
Her answer is an introspection of the inner self: "The construction of our inner worlds can be a way to salvation."
In the series S, developed since 2012, she has taken a more abstract and less aggressive approach. She achieves a classic feeling of harmony by which she shifts the focus from pain to insightful thoughts about truth.
Xiang says she will travel after the exhibition and wants to go to a buzzing little town rather than sunbathe on a beach.
"In the progression of my works, there is a fundamental clue - my curiosity about human nature. I take prodigious delight in observing people."
If you go
10 am-5 pm, Mondays closed, through Oct 22. Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Universal Creative Park, 9 Jiuxianqiao Bei Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5323-2111.
