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       A Queer Chinese Artist Finds Liberation Through Folk Art

       Drawing from his life in rural China, the gay artist known as Xiyadie uses a folk art form to tell his coming out story. His show is coming to the Blindspot Gallery in Hong Kong.

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       In “Train” (1986), the artist Xiyadie depicted himself and a uniformed train attendant locked in an embrace on a rail car. Xiyadie learned to create paper cuts as a child growing up in northern China.Credit...The artist and Blindspot Gallery

       By Tiffany May

       Reporting from Hong Kong

       March 20, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET

       In the years he hid his sexuality from his children and village neighbors, Xiyadie would take short-bladed scissors to rice paper and give shape to unfulfilled dreams.

       At first glance, his creations conform to traditional cutout designs of animals and auspicious symbols adorning doorways and windows in China. But a closer look at the shapes — birds, butterflies and blossoms perched on twisty vines — reveals bodies conjoined in the throes of intimacy or separated by brick walls.

       The artist, 60, who goes by the pseudonym Xiyadie, was born in a farming village in northern China, and he creates queer paper cuts. Paper cutting is a folk tradition dating from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 C.E.) that involves cutting crisp lines and shapes into folded layers of rice paper. It’s about excising the negative space to reveal the picture inside.

       Xiyadie’s home province of Shanxi was a hub for folk art; in his hometown, paper cuts marked births, weddings and Lunar New Year celebrations. The women in the village passed on the craft to their daughters and daughters-in-law. Xiyadie said he learned it by observing his mother and village matriarchs.

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       He mostly cut freehand, sometimes using indentations he made with his fingernails as outlines, then dyed his creations with green, pink, red and yellow pigments. He began making homoerotic paper cuts in the 1980s as he struggled with his closeted sexuality, but for many years he kept these works to himself.

       More on Hong Kong Security Laws: Hong Kong passed long-shelved national security laws at the behest of Beijing, thwarting decades of public resistance in a move that critics say will strike a lasting blow to the partial autonomy the city had been promised by China. Crossing the Border: Since China ended its pandemic isolation in 2023, Hong Kong residents have made the Chinese city of Shenzhen a weekend destination to shop, dine and, yes, even visit the dentist. A Disappearing Act: A government crackdown on neon signs stemmed from safety and environmental concerns, but the campaign evokes the fading of the city itself. Wary Investors: Hong Kong’s close ties to Beijing are putting the city, still an international financial hub, in a bind as it tries to lure Western investors to revive its economy.

       Until 1997, gay people in China risked being persecuted; homosexuality was not removed from the official list of mental disorders, maintained by the Chinese Society of Psychiatry, until 2001.

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       Tiffany May is a reporter based in Hong Kong, covering the politics, business and culture of the city and the broader region. More about Tiffany May

       A version of this article appears in print on March 22, 2024, Section S, Page 4 in The New York Times International Edition. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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