Xiao Wang in "Hesse Flatow presents Xiao Wang: Seeing Through"

In Xiao Wang’s Seeing Through, I found myself transported to those late hours of the day when evening meets darkness, when the orange rays of the sun cling like cobwebs to the surfaces of objects, rebounding across matter and electrifying it. Stepping into the exhibition at Hesse Flatow’s new Tribeca gallery, you feel each painting’s dusky, crepuscular glow as if hearths and candlelight are encircling you amid a blue velvet gloaming. Warm and cool hues duel with one another, producing optical vibrations. There’s an ancestral, primordial genome that this palette taps into, exerting a magnetic pull at odds with the blazing neutral whites of standard gallery illumination. In the supple warmth of twilight fading to night, or of night passing into dawn, Wang locates the emotional depth of his subjects, who seem to mark the passing hours with unease and a certain troubled disposition. Likely, they find themselves under the influence of the same malaise that many of us feel as political headlines blare and civil rights transmute to dust. Likely, they cozy themselves up in the comforts of the evening to insulate themselves from these events, and yet stay awake worrying. Certain objects within each composition act as portents of our collective apprehension, keeping company with Wang’s sleepless figures: a porcelain figurine of a two-headed horse, its eyes wide and mouth agape, unable to trot off in either direction; a raw steak, oozing blood onto the tiled floor; a shattered glass bottle beside a healing Himalayan salt votive; a toppled good luck cat fallen to the ground; and the lemony fruit of the Buddha’s hand, its “fingers” clasped in prayer.