Siyu Xia (b.1995) graduated from China Academy of Art in 2018 with a Bachelor of Printmaking. In 2020-2021 she completed an MA at the Royal College of Art, with a focus on print-based practice. Siyu has recently exhibited work in “Work in Progress” at RCA (London, UK, 2019), “Artists as Independent Publishers” at Bremen (Germany,2021), and “Double Vision” at Cromwell Place (London, UK).
Siyu Xia
My practice is concerned with exploring personal emotions and inner thoughts, in relation to questions about time and our place within the universe. I traverse a range of digital and analogue media, including digital painting, photo collage, watercolour and hand-tufted textiles. My works often explore speculative narratives and draw on popular cultural references to generate imagery and artists books.
Time travel machine
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Book
Book
Book
Book
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What If is an artists’ book in which I imagine a machine that can travel through time and space to connect the past and the present. The illustrations shown here each represent memories of cities I have visited in years gone by. The images overlay fragments of recollections to create visual constellations of different places and times. The book is bound with pink rope and metal chain, to suggest the presence of hard and soft “realities” or possibilities.
Medium:
Artists' book, digital painting, satin rope, metal chainSize:
16x19.5cm
The cover of a Book
The cover of a Book
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Asteroid is inspired by Randall Munroe’s book What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Munroe’s text answers hypothetical questions sent to him by readers of his webcomic, including this one about asteroids:
Q: If an asteroid was very small but supermassive, could you really live on it like the Little Prince?
My work, Asteroid, visually responds to the scenes and elements that Munroe proposes in his answer to this question. It contains photographs of roses, the planet Mars and hand-drawn illustrations of romantic scenes, to propose an imaginary space where science and absurdity might meet.
Medium:
Artists' book, iPad paintingSize:
12x12cm
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Don’t Hide responds to some of the challenges and events I witnessed during the lockdown periods of 2020-2021. During self-isolation, I observed people many people express feelings of being trapped at home and convey a longing for “the good old times” when we could meet friends, celebrate and travel. At the same time, as people stayed away from the city streets some animals reclaimed the space for their own activities. By bringing together a diverse range of found imagery—from fireworks to empty roads, and from bird life to wrist watches and queues of people—I attempt to explore some of the strange and unexpected experiences we may have encountered in the past year.
Medium:
photo collage, found imagerySize:
45X60cm
Doughnut (sketch)
Doughnut — This is the first rug I tried to make. I sketched a doughnut and made a hand-made doughnut rug.
Room
A Room brings together recent work with hand tufted textile rugs, with iPad drawings, to produce a collaged “snapshot” of my life. The rugs are constructed to represent simple objects from my room at home, including flowers, cups and records. Together, these objects and fragments represent the state of my everyday life: I like to drink coffee while tasting doughnuts. I like to listen to music while painting. Each element floats within the empty space of the picture plane, echoing the scientific illustrations of the coronavirus I have been constantly exposed to during self-isolation.