In the history of Chinese avant-garde art, there exists a group of artists who went abroad in the 1980s and, to this day, have either returned to China or continue to reside overseas.

Jin Xu is a prime example of this group. In 1985, he, along with Zhang Peili and Geng Jianli, founded the influential group ’85 New Space.’ in the ’85 Art New Wave’.They later participated in the ’89 Chinese Modern Art Exhibition. Subsequently, upon the invitation from Lakeside Studio in Chicago, Xu Jin held an exhibition in the US and then settled in New York.In Xu Jin’s works, one can observe the continuation of Northern Romanticism by Peter Doig, reminiscent of artists like Friedrich and Turner, as well as the post-impressionist expressionist paintings, akin to Munch, Gauguin, and Bonnard.

Beneath the representations of characters and landscapes flows an undercurrent of emotions such as hesitation, serenity, and hope. For him, Romanticism is not merely an aesthetic reference but a sensuous way of life, bypassing what is traditional in the present and what might become so in the future.