My dad named me Sharon because 1. It sounds like my Chinese name Xinran 2. Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct. Oldest child in the family. Double Cancer (sun & moon).

Contradictions between materials and concepts are fundamental to me, and I keep feeling like a translator between mediums. With paintings, the image-making process is intuitive but the execution is strategic. With sculptural objects (whatever you want to call it), they work as supplemental readings to my theory on notions of screen experience vs. IRL – if you’re seeing them on Instagram or my website, does it constitute a painting or as an object? Are you imagining the texture and the volume? Can you SEE it without any context? Some works are brilliant because they look fantastic in a PDF, while the others are brilliant because you know exactly what it’s trying to do…(or you think) I’m just here questioning everything and not leaving any answers because I’m still trying to figure it out.

All my work is about tension and deadlines. That’s all. If I could articulate it with words I wouldn’t be making art.

Fear of running out of time. Medicine by Ottessa Moshfegh. Exodus by Chuck Palahniuk. Hate. Anger. Wild Nights! by Joyce Carol Oates. Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin. 蜗居. 孽子(白先勇). 过把瘾就死(王朔). 尼克松回忆录. 食草家族(莫言), Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata.

I don’t have a main medium and not planning to commit to anything.

With paintings, I work on two to three different canvases at once and try to do 8-10 hours. Objects are tricky with experiments and tests, these days I try to do both at the same time and am somewhat failing. One thing at a time is hard but I guess it’s the only way for me.

Affairs, Absinthe by Nasomatto (perfume), Authority figures, Biographical Desire, Cashews, Death, Emails, Frantic (1988), Giftgiving, Heat, Inscribed Initials, Julio Cortázar, Kafka on the Shore (both the book and the perfume by FOLIE À PLUSIEURS), Le notti di Cabiria (1957), the Last Days of Disco (1998), Mia Goth, Nodules in my body, Nintendo 3DS, Night walks in a familiar city, Prodigy, Plans, Plastics, Questions, Rules, Remarkable People by État Libre D’orange (perfume), Summers, Streets in Pudong, The Cook, The Thief, His wife & Her Lover (1989), Tiptoeing around the dinning table, Udon, Vows, my middle school boyfriend’s Mother.

Listen to 那么骄傲, journal/write, and bake (buns!). Reading Evelyn Taocheng Wang: I. M. Personally, and thinking about her exhibition An Equivocal Contrast at Rockbund Museum Shanghai last summer. I lived in Chicago for two years now and still feel distant from it, but this year I’m trying allow life to happen with moderation.

Most days I’d like to imagine myself creating works in a vacuum, try my best to remove the “human presence” by not including anything figurative, but recently I’m noticing patterns and it scares me.

I’ll share two. Both are perfumes and both represents a transitional period of my life – Chengdu and Paris, see if you can guess which one’s which.Orange Maureques by Chopard

Venise by Diptyque

I try not to think about the future, all is temporary. Realistically I’m thinking of ways to continue my studies here in the States, but recently I’ve been questioning my motives for wanting to stay, and anticipating new adventures.

To feel enough and at ease. Education.

hardboiled.