Xu Lei 徐累

Born in Nantong, Jiangsu in 1963, Xu Lei studied ink painting at the Department of Fine Arts of Nanjing Art Academy and used to be a professional painter affiliated with Jiangsu Institute of Chinese Painting. Xu was an active participant in the innovative art movement in China in the late 1980s. He returned to ink painting in the 1990s. Well-versed in the classics fine-line (gongbi, detailed and elaborate) and influenced by the traditional art, principally Song painting and woodcut illustrations from the Ming period, as well as by Surrealism and conceptual art, Xu Lei's beautiful paintings rarely incorporate human figures. What counts is a haunting sense of loneliness and isolation, perhaps indicative of the fate of the individual in the contemporary world.