Alisan Fine Arts presents Xu Lei’s solo exhibition “The Mystery of Absence”, featuring 24 of the artist’s latest works. Xu Lei’s paintings, with their exquisite details, their extremely refined colours, bring back to us the China of the old days, making us feel nostalgic for a time gone for ever. The space in paintings has been described as “A stage. Or a photographic studio. Rich curtains isolate the subject, putting it cener-stage. Or, with a voyeuristic effect the loose-fitting pleats hide half, three quarter of the scene including part of the subject, letting us guess about rooms, halls, opening scenes, making us suspect presences, whispers, chatterings,…” (Meg Maggio, in Orientations, Sep. 1991, Report on the exhibition “The Reality of Paper Art”, Shanghai Metropolitan Library, May 1991.)