Her Heart in a Cup of Coffee Painting

Xiaoxuan Liu (Born 1994) is from Beijing, China. In 2012, she went to University of Michigan. She later transferred to School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA 2016), where she started her art practice as a painter. She is inspired by many gestural and colorist painters such as de Kooning, Amy Silman and Sue Williams. Xiaoxuan is also drawn to literature; a sense of anecdote is shown in both her works and the titles of her works. The objects in her work keep recognizable shapes; however, they are reformed into “a different kind of thing”, sometimes even figurative. Xiaoxuan uses bright colors and transparent glaze in her paintings, creating space in them while making a range of marks to create a rich surface. Her paintings are dynamic and free, yet balancing between the abstract and narrative.