Landscape has long been a central thread in Xiao Jiang’s practice. This exhibition extends that thread through a selection of his outdoor paintings. The title echoes a phrase that often returns to the artist while he works: “The one who looks out at the scenery.” In this body of work, “looking out” becomes the hinge between figure and landscape—between what lies within the frame and what extends beyond it.
Several works were made during his stay in the United States earlier this year. Compared with earlier distilled mountain scenes shaped from memory and photographs, these landscapes are more specific and immediate, carrying the sensibility of being in nature. For Xiao, they recall a late-afternoon ascent: moving from a city’s edge up toward a summit as daylight slips into dusk, wind, light, and terrain shifting in and out of view. Each canvas settles a moment of looking outward—an experience one can revisit.
In the galleries, viewers stand as if shoulder-to-shoulder with the figures in the paintings, sharing a gaze into the distance. Outer scenery and inner state meet in the same instant—everywhere becomes landscape.
More information: TANK Shanghai
