"I want to create storytelling through painting, allowing viewers to interpret emotions and relationships."

Affect theory suggests that emotions do not resonate within only internal states; rather, embodied experiences will manifest physically and visually, creating semiotics between bodies, entities, and their experiences. Following the same understanding stands the work of Jenny Saville, who once stated, 'I paint flesh because I'm human,' showcasing her desire to explore the human body's physicality and fluidity beyond mere surface emotions, investigating societal prejudices, taboos, and preconceptions of the past and present with profound psychological intensity; similarly, Tracey Emin’s unfiltered and stark autobiographical work, in her words, 'is about emotion; it is about mood and speech,' emphasizes personal truth over collective labels, a blend of vulnerability and strength. Following in her predecessors’ footsteps and embodying this theoretical framework, London-based artist Tianxi Wang, through mixed-media paintings, transforms personal absence and emotional frameworks into vivid meditations on diaspora and belonging.

In the paintings HOLD ME TIGHT (2025) and CAN YOU STOP CRYING (2025), you can witness this emotional exploration vividly, embodying the signature visual language of the artist. In the first painting, two figures hold each other tight, with warm, brownish colours. Here, these colours are used like wisps of nebula on a fall sunrise in the mountain air, yet it feels as comforting as a favourite old blanket. Meanwhile, in CAN YOU STOP CRYING, a darker figure sits by themselves with another standing in the background by a doorway far away. The composition holds a heavier tone, where layers of acrylic and oil create a surface that resembles memories’ own fragmented and cumulative nature - a silent tactile witness to a descent into oblivion. Much like Cecily Brown's layers, an ambiguous approach to expression of colour, Wang's use of pigment and stroke tells us part of the narrative - each warm hue revealing a longing for connection, each cool tone acknowledging the persistent ache of distance. This intricate interplay of hues visually articulates the complex landscape of invisible emotional currents and familial memories, weaving the artists’ personal experience into vivid visual narratives.  

Informed by German expressionist artists' use of colour and emotion in their work, Wang references the legacies of artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, lively brushwork, stylised forms, and vivid colours, and Edvard Munch, strong emotional and narrative work, which are intertwined with her personal explorations of themes of distance, memory, and connections. The marriage of these two creates a unique visual language that honours the deeply expressive work of German expressionists and her own individual experiences while also creating a bridge with a collective narrative. For the artist, colour is the link between her own internal narratives, subconscious and the audience, as the figure lives within ambiguity, where fragmented portraiture and stylised forms rely on colour and gesture to lead the viewers through the narrative.

Wang's upcoming exhibition, part of the 2025 Ingram prize exhibition in London, features a painting called 'THE LAST NIGHT(2025), a portrait of two figures dining together. In this work, you can clearly pinpoint emotions like sadness or happiness through the use of blue, yellow, and pink, where the scene gives an ambiguous atmosphere, not revealing what it all means, yet being oddly familiar. Technically, the artist starts with sketches in her sketchbook, then colour and emotion take centre stage, as there is much reflection on how to balance warm and cool tones to “create a complex feeling”. By using her signature layering of expressive, bright acrylic paint and the final details in oil, most of her work creates depth and complexity, leading us into a world of personal intimacy and universal resonance.

Fusing these frameworks of emotional rawness and vivid exploration of colour, Wang’s work speaks in an intense, ruminative, and inevitably human expression. In place of a theatrical show for the audience comes a raw expression that resonates with viewers, and the artist conveys what it feels like to live her experiences, as opposed to just looking at them. The resurgence of deeply emotional and raw art explorations in recent years poses the question of what it means to be an artist within social norms and trends in the time of fast-paced image culture that contextualises the present moment. Wang’s approach intersects with this significant trend within contemporary art, where there is a focus on personal narratives and a disengagement from more traditional and abstract art in search of building a stronger emotional response and dialogue with audiences.

With a responsibility and desire to explore her emotional frameworks and the tension and emotional residue within intimate bonds, Wang’s paintings conceive a space where personal and intimate narratives can reflect wider social and political feelings.  By weaving her personal diaspora experiences into open storytelling methods, Wang acts as a conduit for these large socio-political currents towards raw and unedited expression, inviting her audience to perceive her art as a reflection of collective struggles and triumphs. Her figurative and raw expressionist painting seeks to focus on the individual softening into that of the collective.

Find out more about the artist here.

Cover image:

Hold me tight, 2025. Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 50cm*60cm by Tianxi Wang.

Images courtesy of Tianxi Wang.