A journey to China: after seeking political asylum in Australia in 1990, Ah Xian discovered, in an old medium, a new way to express his experience of the Chinese diaspora and the reconciliation of his past and present lives

Art in America, Feb, 2002 by Roni Feinstein

An orange butterfly is draped across he nose of a gleaming porcelain bust of a woman, its wings covering her eyes, the fine curve of its antennas echoing that of her naturalistically stippled eyebrows. A yellow blossom rests against her lips while a larger, pink bloom hangs down over her forehead. Other colorful, exquisitely detailed butterflies and flowers and a host of leaves in many different shades of green are scattered about her head, neck, chest and shoulders, nearly covering the whole of her form.

A traditional Chinese landscape is painted on the portrait bust of an older Chinese man. His eyes and lips are closed; he appears lost in reverie. Rocks, cliffs and hills climb his shoulders, clouds hover around his head, craggy trees stretch across the mountain lake upon his chest, where an old man with a walking stick crosses a small stone bridge.

Both are works by Ah Xian, a Beijing-born artist who has lived in Sydney, Australia, since 1990. Upwards of 30 of his painted porcelain portrait busts were included in an exhibition titled "China, China," which was first presented in 2000 at Beijing Teacher's University and later at art centers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The exhibition's title refers to the artist's country of origin, to the Western name of a once-coveted ceramic material and to a major series of works by Ah Xian. It was while living in Sydney in the mid-'90s that Ah Xian, who had previously worked in a wide range of mediums and techniques, turned to porcelain. With this, he embarked on a journey that would carry him both literally and in spirit back to the land of his birth, and more specifically to Jingdezhen, the historical center of China's fine-porcelain production. The journey would culminate in a mature, fully realized art expressing his experience of the Chinese diaspora and the reconciliation of his past and present lives.

Ah Xian's work melds two artistic lineages: painting on porcelain, a long-standing tradition in China, and the portrait bust, a form which originated in ancient Rome. His porcelain busts have their source not in carved or molded likenesses but in direct body casts. They feature anonymous Chinese men and women, young and old, heavy and slight, with short hair or long. The lustrous busts are painted with adaptations of traditional Chinese patterns commonly found on plates, bowls and vases, most of them derived from designs made for the imperial court in the Ming (1364-1643) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. The designs wrap around the figures like tattoos, as if to demonstrate that these individuals, whoever they are and wherever they live, are inescapably marked by their heritage. (1)

The perceived preciousness and fragility of the material, the exquisite painting and the manner in which the busts are sometimes displayed (at the Powerhouse they were spotlighted and set in glass cases in the museum's Asian Galleries, like antique treasures) suggest that they be viewed as beautiful, decorative objects. However, the works are also didactic in intent. Close examination of individual busts reveals a range of symbolic meanings, the "China, China" series as a whole deriving from the artist's sense of dislocation and self.

Born in Beijing in 1960, Ah Xian belongs to the post-Cultural Revolution generation. Both of his parents held posts at universities, his mother as an English teacher and his father as an administrator. Although he had decided at a young age to be an artist, he never received formal training. Upon completing high school, he went to a technical school and became a mechanical fitter in a factory. He devoted his spare time to art. In 1983, he began to use the nickname Ah Xian rather than his given name, Liu Ji Xian. Also in 1983, Chinese government officials knocked on his door and took him into custody for one night, questioning him about his artist friends and artistic practices, particularly about painting nudes, which was frowned upon under the "anti-spiritual-pollution" campaign and forbidden to artists who were not linked to the official art academy. A few of his paintings were confiscated. While much shaken by this encounter, he continued to paint nudes, such as his surrealistic "Palace Lady" series (1985-86), in which nude females populate vaguely defined architectural settings consisting of enclosing walls and archways. In the late '80s, he produced a series of large-scale drawings in ink on rice paper that consist of fragments of nude figures set against rubbings made from brick walls. These works convey the sense of confinement and constriction he felt at that time.

Ah Xian went to Australia for the first time in 1989, as a visiting artist at Tasmania's school of art. He returned to Beijing a few weeks before the June 4 massacre at Tiananmen Square. He says he felt "shocked, depressed and angered" by the Chinese government's violent response to the student demonstrations. (2) When he and his brother, an artist who does photo-based and computer-generated work, were invited to participate in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney in 1990, the two decided to seek political asylum and stay in Australia; Ah Xian's wife followed a month later.