For Yao Xiao, the artist studio is a laboratory for connecting the subconscious with the physical world.  The exhibition, Instantaneous Freedom, a series of watercolor paintings created both in studio and on location in the remote Vancouver Island and beaches in San Diego, draws inspiration from nature and meditation.  Through this process, Yao steps out of urban confinement to create art impressionistically. The series grew out of the abstract ideas of release, independence, and protection, and evolved into a contemplation of the fluidity of sensual experience in nature, and a desire for spiritual understanding of one’s environment. 

Yao Xiao was born in China and emigrated to the United States at age 16. After graduation in 2013 with a degree in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts, Yao sought a way to document her experiences as a queer immigrant in and developed a series of comics incorporating illustration and writing.  She continued to build on this practice and today is a successful illustrator, cartoonist and writer. Yao’s work has been featured in Buzzfeed, National Geographic, TIME Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal among others.Yao has shown her work at galleries in New York, San Francisco and Seattle. This is her first solo art exhibition.

Thank you to DLJ for hosting the exhibition.