Su Xiaobai, TREASURE, 2025 | Photo: Su Xiaobai | © Su Xiaobai Foundation, 2026 | Courtesy Su Xiaobai Foundation

Can painting exist without images? For Su Xiaobai, the answer seems to be yes. His works contain no recognizable figures or landscapes, but monochromatic surfaces, layers, traces and subtle variations of light. An artistic practice that turns matter itself into the subject of the work. At Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel in Venice, Su Xiaobai's Alchemical Universe, on view until November 22, 2026, presents 23 lacquer paintings spanning more than twenty years of experimentation by the Chinese artist, born in Wuhan in 1949. The exhibition also includes his first work using this technique, dating from 2003. Initially trained in oil and ink painting in China, Su Xiaobai continued his studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. The turning point came during a stay in Fujian province, one of China's historic centres of lacquer production. From then on, this material, traditionally associated with decorative arts, became central to his artistic practice. Through successive applications of lacquer, pigments and metals, the artist builds up surfaces that are subsequently abraded, incised and worked to reveal the underlying layers. Colour acquires depth, light changes according to the viewing angle, and each work retains traces of its own creation. At the heart of the exhibition are twelve works from his most recent series, Niao Niao, whose title evokes fleeting images of nature: moonlight on snow, distant bells, mountains veiled in mist. Restrained compositions in which the sensibility of classical Chinese ink painting resurfaces through an entirely abstract language. In keeping with In Minor Keys, the theme of the 2026 Venice Art Biennale, the exhibition offers an experience far removed from the spectacle of much contemporary art. Here, everything unfolds through subtle variations in the surface and the relationship between matter, light and time. And through the possibility that a painting might tell us something without representing anything.

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