Recent paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Xiangjie Rebecca Wu. Born in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, China, Wu received a BA in Studio Art and Philosophy at the College of Wooster in 2022 and her MFA from Pratt Institute in 2024. Her figurative works draw on both recollection and imagination, and explore themes of memory, selfhood, loss, and “the palpable fear of insecurity that permeates our existence”. For Wu, painting is an act of contemplation stemming directly from one’s relationship with the past:

“In contemplation, I dive deeply into myself, embarking on secret voyages within the soul, oriented toward a lost time and space, those shards that were once parts of me coalescing within me and then dissipating. Sometimes loss is unavoidable; memories of times once filled me with sorrow, and our relationship to history is always vulnerable and ephemeral. Reflection takes place in the present, attempting to remain in contact with the past, to preserve an awareness of existence from the fragments of time. Millennial Chinese objects and spaces create a closed narrative environment by fusing memory and imagination, providing viewers with a doorway for contemplation. Spaces that feel both familiar and remote, with still lifes personified in their presence—concrete yet metaphorical. These subjects, which are balanced between realism and symbolism, reveal the inner, hidden character of existence through seeing. Painting becomes a practice of salvaging and reassembling the self, suspended between obscurity and beauty.”