Yiwen Hu

Yiwen Hu (b. 1999, Chengdu) is an artist currently based in Chengdu, China. She holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in London (2023) and a BFA in Painting from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles (2021). Working primarily with raw canvas, water, and mixed media, Hu’s practice explores the emotional resonance of abstraction, engaging with the evolving relationship between the inner psyche and the natural world. Her works materialise the ambiguity of change and the psychological fluctuations that accompany it, embedding emotional states within improvised gestures and atmospheric stains.

Guided by intuition and shaped by environmental conditions, Hu’s process embraces spontaneity and impermanence. She employs techniques such as staining, layering, and ink wash to capture the uncontrollable diffusion of emotion and pigment alike. Weather impacts the pace of drying and the behaviour of materials, while emotional shifts determine colour and form. Through this interplay, her paintings emerge as abstract psychological landscapes—spaces where colour, gesture, and texture mirror internal turbulence and the hidden rhythms of nature. Her use of vibrant, layered hues evokes fleeting moods, allowing each work to unfold as an open, sensory field that resists fixed interpretation.

Hu’s work has been shown internationally, with recent group exhibitions including The Secret Garden, Vibration, and Denoise at 11 Contemporary Art Center in Shenzhen (2024–2025), Unseen Wounds at The Crypt Gallery in London (2023), and Shape of Mood, her solo exhibition at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2021). She was awarded the Global Talent Art Prize – Special Prize (UK, 2024) and the Barbara Frankel Award (Los Angeles, 2021), and has contributed to public art initiatives such as the Stoneview Nature Centre mural project in California.