Lingrou Xie’s painting practice begins from personal experience, reconstructing the ways in which life forms exist between memory and imagination. In her work, reality is not treated as a stable object but rather as a series of fragments continuously recalled, revised, and layered. The artist draws the origins of her imagery from lived experience while excavating figures and motifs from the depths of memory, establishing a subtle and open relationship between the two.
Installation view of 120 Days of Sodom, Jan. 10, 2026 - Mar. 8, 2026, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai, ©Courtesy of Nan Ke Gallery, Photographed by Runxin.
The visual structures of her paintings are often composed through the appropriation of real images and the juxtaposition of multiple motifs. Living and non-living entities coexist within the same pictorial space: flowers, objects, figures, and environments interweave like fragments of memory that have fallen out of sequence. Xie places recollection within an individual schema of the self, circulating between departure, return, and suspension. Through layers of concealment and overlapping imagery, she simulates the process through which memory is rewritten, replaced, and reconfigured. Painting thus moves beyond representation to become an evolving psychological structure.
Formally, her work inhabits a transitional zone between realism and expression. Detailed rendering and loosened forms together produce an atmosphere akin to dreamlike murmurs, giving the paintings the texture of fragmented recollection. The boundary between figuration and abstraction is repeatedly blurred, allowing images to retain traces of the real while extending toward a more interior emotional terrain. In this way, Xie establishes a delicate balance between visual order and emotional movement.
Lingrou Xie
A Slow Returning Tide, 2025
Oil on canvas
60h x 50w cm
©Courtesy of the artist
A cool and restrained palette forms a defining element of her painterly language. Dim tonalities and soft luminosity create a slow visual rhythm that unfolds across the surface of the canvas, almost like breathing. The flowers and objects that recur in her compositions appear simultaneously as remnants of lived reality and as symbols drawn from dream imagery. Gradually, the works open toward an imagined realm that is at once familiar and estranged. Within this space, fragility, resilience, and quiet vitality are rewoven into a distinctive and intimate visual narrative.
March 14, 2026
