Leon Xu’s paintings explore memory, identity, and place through hazy, dreamlike imagery that feels suspended in time. Soft palettes, layered textures, and ephemeral forms evoke the shifting nature of memory and the emotional residue of lived experience. Embracing ambiguity over fixed narratives, Xu creates scenes that feel at once intimate and familiar.
Unframed
Artwork courtesy of Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich.
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Available until 3:00 PM, Oct 15, 2026.

About the artist:

Leon Xu’s work explores the boundaries between memory, identity, and place. Drawing on his background as a Chinese-born immigrant in the United States, Xu creates paintings which engage with themes of cultural displacement, emotional residue, and the tension between visibility and obscurity. His visual language is characterized by a dreamlike sensibility-scenes appear hazy, melancholic, and suspended in time, evoking moments that feel both deeply personal and universally familiar. Informed by an early interest in graffiti and instinct-driven mark-making, Xu’s practice resists rigid narrative, favoring ambiguity and introspection.

Through the use of soft palettes, layered textures, and ephemeral forms, Xu’s work becomes a space for contemplation-one that embraces transience and the shifting nature of memory.

Specs:

14 inches
10 inches
Leon Xu:
It's so easy to love you, 2026
Acrylic on canvas
10.0 × 14.0 inches /