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Xuanru Leah Wang, born in 2000 in Jingdezhen, China, graduated from the University for the Creative Arts (UK) with a BA in Film Production in 2023 and earned an MRes in Arts and Humanities from the Royal College of Art (UK) in 2024. Currently based in London, she focuses on oil painting in her artistic practice.

Xuanru’s iconographic universe explores how the flesh and gestures of the body access humanity’s experiences of desire and pathos. She is deeply captivated by Aby Warburg’s concept of the "Pathosformel", described as "an expressive paradigm for humanity’s primal, irrational, afflicted, and passion-driven states of existence." The entangled limbs and hands in her works often draw inspiration from historical films, classical paintings, and occult imagery. Her painting practice functions like an archaeology of art history, reasserting humanity’s timeless memories of pathos.

Xuanru’s paintings oscillate between the polarities of abstraction and figuration, substance and void. The abstract elements in her compositions stem from her research into Tarot symbolism, where "energy" manifests as a spiritual substance concealed within the layered textures and creases of the painted surface. For Xuanru, painting is an alchemy of materials—pigments, oils, wax, varnish, charcoal—with the artist’s gaze serving as the Philosopher’s Stone. She also likens the act of painting to an extended process of film editing, one that demands solitude and silence to enter its subtle, enigmatic sequence.

汪烜如(Xuanru Leah Wang),2000 年出生于中国景德镇,2023 年毕业于英国创意艺术大学,获得电影制作学士学位,2024 年获得英国皇家艺术学院艺术与人文硕士学位。目前,她常驻伦敦,主要从事油画创作。

汪烜如的图像世界探索肉身与手势之间何以触及人类对于爱欲和悲情的体验。阿比-沃伯格(Aby Warburg)的 “Pathosformel ”概念深深启发了她,这一概念被描述为“对于人类原始的、非理性的、受难的、激情相关的生命情态的表现范式”。她作品中缠绕的肢体和手经常从历史电影、古典绘画和神秘意象中汲取灵感。她的绘画实践就像艺术史考古学,重申人类永恒的悲情记忆。

汪烜如的绘画位于抽象与具象、实质与虚空的极性荡摆间。作品中的抽象元素源于她对塔罗牌符号学的研究,其中的“能量”作为一种精神物质隐匿于画面的涂层褶皱中。对于烜如而言,绘画是材料的炼金术--颜料、油、蜡、清漆、木炭--而艺术家的目光则是哲人石。绘画同时也是一次漫长的电影剪辑,欲求进入这幽微的序列,需独自一人、保持沉默。

Education

[2023-2024] MRes Fine Art, Royal College of Art, London, UK

[2019-2022] BA Film Production, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK

Selected Exhibitions

[2023] University for the Creative Arts Degree Show, UCA Campus, Farnham, UK (group)

[2024] Fragments of the Future, The Hanger Gallery, London, UK (group)

[2024] Phony’s ‘Open Call’, Gallery Lock In, Brighton, UK (group)

[2024] Past Future, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, UK (group)

[2024] Royal College of Art Degree Show, RCA Battersea, London, UK(group) 

[2024] Emergence, The Glasgow Gallery of Photography, Glasgow, UK(group)

[2024] Keep In Touch, Greenwich West Community & Arts Centre, London, UK(group)

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