Xue Ruozhe is a painter whose practice has also grown to include photography, video and print making. He is primarily a portrait painter. In his works, figures seem to float onto an almost entirely empty background that puts a sharp focus on their attitude. Often shown from the back, they hide most of their facial features, so that it is instead their body language and their clothes that reveal their psychology to the viewer.
Xue Ruozhe’s photographs seem not to derive from his paintings, but rather to inspire his paintings, as they often show figures holding similar poses but seen from a more distant point of view and in a more detailed decor, just before they come under the painter’s gaze. Finally, his videos and prints highlight details of the paintings with a different lens, making the viewer more aware of the significance of particular areas and attitudes.
Despite his young age, Xue Ruozhe’s work has already been shown extensively in galleries and institutions including at the GAFA Art Museum in Guangzhou, the Wuhan Art Museum, Tate Modern London and Zhangzhou Art Museum.