Xing Wanli (b. 1992, Chengde, Hebei) previously studied at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, and now lives and works in Chengdu. Through his ongoing exploration of the relationship between text, image and memory, Xing creates works that present diverse visual structures and invite viewers into a multidimensional space of reflection. When we speak of memory, how much of it is a faithful recounting of real events, and how much is the reconstruction or imagination of what has already vanished? It is precisely this ambiguity—hovering between the real and the imagined—that opens a space for the artist’s practice, where tentative brushstrokes probe along unfamiliar paths in search of the unknown. In his painterly process, Xing employs the fluidity and uncontrollability inherent to the medium of oil paint, allowing the images to oscillate between stillness and noise, figuration and abstraction. By capturing the fragmentary and accidental nature of memory, he fixes those drifting images of consciousness onto the canvas. In this process, memory is no longer a simple reproduction of the past, but an active state intertwined with present perception—constantly reconstructed and participating in the experience of the now. His works are held in the collections of X Museum and other institutions. His work, Assassinating the Chief of the Knights, was selected into the “Cultural City of East Asia 2019 Toshima

Award”.