Overview
Bio
Credits
What does it mean to be “consumed” by lust, or to “possess” another? The artists Oh de Laval, Shafei Xia, and Urara Tsuchiya explore every manner of appetite, from sublimated yearning to all-consuming hunger. United by an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek approach to the erotic and a flair for fantasy, the paintings and ceramic sculptures in this exhibition move between pulpy melodrama and decorative daintiness. Along the way, sexuality is experienced as love, but also as competition, involving our animal natures—and sometimes even the swapping of human and animal roles.
Oh de Laval paints erotic vignettes, replete with cinematic references and commanding femmes fatales. For this exhibition she has painted a monumental new work, The Intimacy of knowing how to make someone’s perfect cup of tea, in which a hostess prepares to take possession of her priapic partner.
Shafei Xia’s rococo-inflected magical realism is exemplified by the paintings and sculptures in this exhibition; a timeless universe in which two of her favorite protagonists, the tiger and the pig, share tender moments with a teeming cast of human characters.
Urara’s Tsuchiya’s ceramic vessels and sculptures range from studied realism to playful exuberance. A new work, Doll House, imagines an every-day orgy in an apartment setting. Like the more narrative works in the exhibition by Shafei Xia and Oh de Laval, Tsuchiya’s richly enigmatic compositions invite playful and pointed speculation. Together, these artists explore the intersection of the fantastic and the ordinary, the child-like and the refined, in a rich dialogue around what belongs to who.
Oh De Laval
Polish-Thai artist Oh De Laval’s vibrant, faux-naïf figurative paintings are beautiful yet macabre, unsettling yet humorous, and deviant yet honest. Her characters reside within lush landscapes and interiors reminiscent of a Rococo-esque frivolity, yet the women are often bare-chested, painted in garish pinks and reds, and the men have sardonic grins plastered onto their melting faces. Paintings that may appear romantic from afar take on an unsettling or playful edge as she explores 21st-century eroticism. “The eroticism in my paintings is as much about sexual desire as lust, wrath, violence, despair, and happiness,” the artist has said.
Shafei Xia
Shafei Xia was born in ShaoXing, China, in 1989. After graduating in set design from ChongQing University, in 2013 she turned down a steady job in her native city to move to Shanghai, where after various experiences her first sale of a work enabled her to “catch the scent of freedom in the air,” as she writes. She moved to Bologna and earned a degree at the Fine Arts Academy in 2020. In 2019 she won the Talent Prize of Fondazione Zucchelli per l’Arte.
Urara Tsuchiya
Urara Tsuchiya (b. 1979, Japan) lives and works between Glasgow and London. The artist’s expansive practice– spanning intricately constructed ceramics, immersive installations, costume, performance and video– is united by its subversion of kitsch or quotidian objects to break down boundaries of acceptability in her humorous, often playful, work. She has found inspiration everywhere from a nude sauna to seedy hotel rooms, and creates immersive environments that are likely to surprise. By adopting narratives from personal conversations, but also films or TV shows, Tsuchiya is concerned with pushing the boundaries of comfortability.
CURATOR
Ariel Plotek, Chief Curator
Amanda Assaf, Curatorial Research Manager
CURATORIAL ASSISTANCE
Laura Metzler, Exhibitions and Curatorial Manager
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Eunice Yunjeong Lee
Kaye Torres
EXHIBITION PRODUCTION
Cletis Chatterton
INSTALLATION & CONSTRUCTION TEAM
Allison Halter
Flores Painting
Sara Sciabbarrasi