New World Health Club

作品賞析

Artist Xiao Qi-Heng’s oil painting New World Health Club depicts the scenery in a massage parlor. Going to the gym to exercise is part of Xiao’s daily life, but after exercising, he will also arrange for massage and cupping sessions to relieve muscle soreness. In the painting, the orange mountains combine the forms seen in salt lamps with colors of the human body’s skin and muscles, symbolizing the fatigue that builds up in the body like stones after exercise. The employees of the massage parlor, like stonemasons, knock the ore from the human body, turning it into fine gravel and scattering it on the floor. Details in the picture—busy masseurs, green marble floors, and photos of outstanding employees hanging on the wall—create a familiar massage parlor space. Wave-like brushstrokes are a technique frequently used by Xiao Qi-Heng, enhancing the visual sense associated with the feelings of restlessness in sore muscles after exercise, which adds to the atmosphere of discomfort throughout the painting. They enhance the visual sense associated with the feelings of restlessness in sore muscles after exercise. That restlessness adds to the atmosphere of discomfort throughout the painting.