Spoken Leaves

Matèria is pleased tto host "Spoken Leaves", Chen Xiaoyi's second solo exhibition at the gallery. With her long-awaited return to Rome, the artist presents a new body of work that highlights her pronounced inclination towards multidisciplinarity developed in recent years, evidenced by the fusion of photography, publishing, sculpture, video, and experimental printing techniques. The title Spoken Leaves draws inspiration from a dialogue between Martin Heidegger and Tezuka Tomio (a professor of German literature at the Imperial University of Tokyo), in which the two, to explore the subtle evocative nuances of language and its essence, delve into the concept of "Koto ba," a Japanese term meaning "word/language" but also known as the "Garden of Words." This definition, with its deep metaphorical character, plays a key role in Chen's research, inviting viewers to navigate existential dimensions beyond mere verbal communication. Spoken Leaves thus emerges as a bridge, fluidly connecting the ordinary with the profound traces of nature and human consciousness; a metaphorical boundary formally rendered by the monumentality of the Hengduan Mountains in China, a place that has characterized the artist's last four years of life, fostering and inspiring the visual translation of the transient essence of natural phenomena. In Chen Xiaoyi's imagination, the landscape is redrawn along the coordinates of transcendence, seeking an ancestral vitality that fuels a new dynamic perspective, surpassing the boundaries of human temporality; a tool to navigate a contemporary landscape fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. Imbued with a sense of temporal depth, Chen Xiaoyi's works anchor the experience of life to indeterminate horizons, blurring the line between the tangible and the transcendent, seeking magical elements in everyday experience. Spoken Leaves is a testament to Chen's bold attempt to capture the essence of existence itself.





Chen Xiaoyi was born in Sichuan, China, in 1992. She currently lives and works in Chengdu, China. After graduating in Photojournalism from the University of Leeds MET, she obtained her MA in Photography from the London College of Communications in 2014 and won the LCC/Photofusion Award. In 2015, she was awarded the Three Shadows Photography Award, the most prestigious photography award in China, and in 2017, she was named one of the 30 Under 30 Asian artists by Forbes magazine. Chen Xiaoyi's artistic practice, deeply rooted in the aesthetics of nature and Eastern philosophy, is influenced by Western abstract art. Although her work is based on photography, it transcends individual media. Focusing on the subtle perceptions of the human being, she explores the relationship between temporal succession and human perception. Her recent solo exhibitions include: "The Epoch of Rippling Hengduan Mountains: The Nameless Lands" (Chronus Art Center, Shanghai, China, 2023), "Streit" (Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, China, 2020), "The stranger:…and while I blossomed all alone, the world slumbered" (Theatre Crochetan, Switzerland, 2018 / Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, 2018), "One Giant Leap" (Matèria, Rome, 2017), "Never!" (A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, 2017), "The Inadequacy of Language" (Matèria, Rome, 2016). Special projects and recent participations include: Images Vevey Biennial (Switzerland), Biennale de la Photographie de Mulhouse (France), Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival (China), Lianzhou Foto (China), Paris Photo (France), Liste Art Fair (Switzerland), Museum Folkwang (Germany), Benaki Museum (Greece), Guangdong Times Museum (China), OCAT Shenzhen (China), Power Station of Art (China), Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Beijing), A4 Art Museum (China).