How a homoerotic paper cutting artwork by Chinese artist Xiyadie changed this LGBT art collector’s life
- Door by Shaanxi artist Xiyadie is a Chinese paper cutting that is ‘borderline censorable in China’, says Patrick Sun, a collector of LGBT art
- Depicting a mother nursing her baby, and behind closed doors, two men having sex, for Sun, it is a symbol of the struggle for acceptance
In its intricacy and rich symbolism, Door (2017) is a characteristic work of Xiyadie, an artist from Shaanxi province whose pieces depict homoerotic scenes through the most traditional of Chinese folk art media: paper cutting. Patrick Sun Kai-yit, a collector of queer art, whose Sunpride Foundation aims to make the world a better place for the LGBT community through the promotion of art, explains how it changed his life.
I first saw Xiyadie’s work in a group show in Sweden. He’s a folk artist from a poor village in China. The unique factor about his work is the medium he uses. We all know traditional paper cuttings from China. It’s a traditional medium but he has an unusual perspective, which is queer eroticism. His work is borderline censorable in China, but he somehow escapes that. People just think, “Oh, paper cutting!”
At first glance, this work shows almost a typical rural scene, of a family. On the right, there’s a woman with beautifully braided hair nursing a baby. But on the left, you have two men engaging in oral sex behind a door. So it’s obviously about a man who has a wife and kid but who is also gay and engaging in sex outside marriage.
If you look at the men, they have Picasso faces, with eyes front and back: they’re enjoying themselves but they’re scared of being discovered. It’s a very powerful image for me of how a man struggles for acceptance from society.
His work falls into the focus of Sunpride, which is on art with an LGBTQ theme. We have several of his works and have continued to collect them.