Kan Xuan 阚萱

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Kan Xuan is a Chinese contemporary visual artist who experiments with various types of media including painting, photography, and video installation. Having worked extensively in the Netherlands, her work indicates some exposure to international experience and influence.

Date & Place of Birth

Kan was born in Xuancheng in the Anhui Province in Eastern China in 1972.

Education & Development

Kan graduated from the China Art Academy in Hangzhou in the Zhejian province in 1997.

Art

Although Kan works with various types of media including painting, performance art, and photography, she is best known for her video installations and is considered an important female video artists in China. Her work aims to illuminate the rarely noticed feelings and emotions of the everyday. To Kan, video works like a diary, recording everyday experiences objectively and fully. Her recent work includes body-oriented performances and image transformation. Though the images appear simple, Kan argues simplicity is a form of freedom and directness is a vehicle for understanding life.

Toad Series

Kan’s photographs of toads peeled of their skin illustrate the theory of converting fearful and uncomfortable images into art. She created this series as a way to overcome her fear of the amphibian. The series begins with images of a live toad on Kan’s nude body and progresses with images of the toad on exceedingly more intimate parts of her body. Having overcome her fear, the last image shows the toad in a clear plastic bag. She then had the toad skinned alive at the market, and photographed it again in the clear plastic bag. The final photographs are disturbingly captivating with the pale, dead frog, inside a clear, yet tinted, bag on a background of snowy white. Though this final act demonstrates her conquest of the toad and of her fear, she admits her actions were cruel, suggesting all humans have the capacity for cruelty within us at some point in our lives

“A Happy Girl”

This video takes place in a cheerful, green garden landscape. An empty platform stands out from the greenery, and suddenly, a naked young woman appears dancing in mirth. The video is quite short, as the woman disappears in less than one minute.

(Left: "Happy Girl" Still Frame, 2002.)

Awards & Honors

2005: De Prix de Rome 2005 Basic Prize, the Netherlands

Exhibitions

Kan Xuan has shown in China since 1995, including the 45 Degrees as Reason exhibition. In 2002, she exhibited at the le Fresony Studio National in France--her first international show. For Kan Xuan’s full CV, please click here.