xie molin

谢墨凛

b.1979

Constellation catalog

Xie Molin was born in 1979 in Wenzhou, in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. He moved to Beijing in 1995 to attend the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 2003 he graduated from the mural department of CAFA and subsequently obtained an MFA in painting at the Edinburgh College of Art. He lives in Beijing.

Xie Molin’s art explores the interface between the painter and the tools or technology that the painter uses. He has invented a machine, or rather adapted one, to create abstract pictures at his behest. His XYZ Triaxial Linkage Painting Machine produces images that have been pre-programmed by the artist, and which are never repeated. So whatever the machine is exactly, it cannot be said to be a printer, nor is it a robot artist. And since it is itself the work of Xie, then perhaps the machine is the art, not the mesmerising oil paintings it produces? 

Xie’s has participated in several group exhibitions including the CAFAM/Future at the Art Museum of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing, 2012); 28 Chinese, the Rubell Family Collection show (Miami, 2013); ON | OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013); Focus Beijing: the De Heus-Zomer Collection, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2014); Pull Left, Urban Arts Space, Ohio State University and Hillstrom Museum, Gustavus Adolphus College, USA (2014). Light/Deposits, Beijing Commune, Beijing (2014); A Victory Over Nothingness: Purse Snatch in Streetcar and Other Post Fevralist Absurdities, Intelligentsia Gallery, Beijing, 2015 and Beijing Commune, 2018.