Xujiahui Cathedral, CCA Andratx, Andratx, Spain

Xujiahui Cathedral in Shanghai was first established in 1851, shortly after the establishment of the French Concession, as a French Jesuit mission for Catholic evangelization and education on what was then the rural outskirts of Shanghai. Today, Xujiahui has become the urban center of Xuhui District. It is where I was born, in a maternity hospital directly across the street. In a society where the majority of people report no formal religious affiliation, the cathedral is often encountered less as a site of belief than as an architectural object and a marker of Catholicism’s foreignness: while it continues to function for a small Christian community, it attracts a much larger public as a space to be visually and culturally appreciated. This draws me to the cathedral as a revealing example of a postcolonial irony in this city in which the material traces of colonial culture are appreciated, while local traditions receive comparatively less attention.

The source image is a photograph my mother sent to our family group chat while visiting the church during a walk. Pictorially, I was drawn to how nearly 80% of the image is engulfed in darkness, almost monochrome, with only faint traces of architectural elements, set against the sharp luminosity of the stained-glass windows. In the painting, this contrast is produced through two distinct material treatments: the darker architectural areas are airbrushed directly onto semi-transparent fabric, while the stained-glass sections are airbrushed over a thick layer of acrylic, tracing the shape of the window.The resulting difference in surface reflectivity—caused by varying levels of paint absorbance—attenpts to recreate the stark visual tension between the radiant windows and the shadowed interior.