Xinran Liu (b.1998, China) is an artist based in Chengdu and London. She has a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and gets her MA at Royal College of Art. Xinran creates artwork to store her memories. These moments transform into graphic narrations and textual illustrations. Xinran's works have been exhibited internationally in London, Beijing, and Chicago.
Xinran Liu
Painting is the game between text and images, presence and absence. It can be a delicate allocation of color and shape that swirls and twirls on the canvas.
I see my artworks as the portal to revisit my personal memory and cultural identity. They are like the messages taken in a notebook, which is loosely built up and scattered around. The random figures and traces of movements assemble a temporary, transparent, and soft space.
They center around the fragments of memories that slip away when I try to grasp them. These perishable entities wave up a net, a temporary connection of thoughts that whisper and fade away. It recreates the time when I live with my friends and family.
Next to you, oil on canvas, 190x130 cm, 2023
We sit around the table, oil on canvas, 160x150 cm, 2023
My masquerade, oil on canvas, 190x130 cm, 2023
An uninvited guest, oil on canvas, 100x127 cm, 2022
Yesterday once more, oil on canvas, 100x127 cm, 2022
Untitled, oil on canvas, 100x127 cm, 2022
One and two, oil on canvas, 100x127cm, 2022
To the light house, oil on canvas, 105x127cm, 2023
One, two and three, oil on canvas, 40x60cm, 2022
How far away is home, 19x26cm, beeswax, 2023