Theodora, 2021
I used to look at a lot of paintings from the Bay Area Figurative Movement, painters like Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, when I was studying and living on the West Coast for a few years. It has taught me to look at a painting in a different way from its combination of figurative and abstraction both seen in the figurative paintings. I am also influenced by Impressionist painters such as Cezanne, Gauguin, and Manet. They capture momentary and essence without details.
Kiki Xuebing Wang
Kiki Xuebing Wang (b. 1993, Zhengzhou, China) is a painter based in London. She holds a BFA from UCLA and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. Her work focuses on everyday and luxury objects — shoes, flowers, everyday items — which she renders in oil paint through layered surfaces, often creating semi-translucent, fractured compositions. She explores themes of perception, desire, objecthood, and the boundary between the actual and the simulacrum. Using light, color, layer, and intervening abrasion or smudging, her paintings distort form to show how value, scale, and meaning shift when things are removed from their usual contexts. Her practice has been recognized through awards, like, John Moores Emerging Artist Prize. “Ripples,” Linseed Projects, Shanghai, CN (2023); “Marble Dessert,” Ginny on Fredrick x Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK (2023); “Lapwings,” Half Gallery, New York, US (2022). Kiki Xuebing Wang’s works have been presented in group exhibitions including: “Notes Toward a Shell,” Tara Downs, New York, US (2024); “Tie up,” Linseed Projects, Seoul, KR (2023); “The Connection,” Billytown, The Hague, NL (2022); “A Place of One’s Own, Andrea fest Fine Art, Rome, IT (2022); “Harmonious Arrangement,” Half Gallery, Los Angeles, US (2022).