About Xin Lu
Painting became my anchor during the isolation of 2020. What began as a private exploration of color and form quickly evolved into a vital practice—a way to process uncertainty and rediscover beauty in stillness. Initially self-taught, I learned to trust intuition as I moved between oil, collage, and drawing. In 2023, I joined the Modern Color Atelier at Gage Academy of Art, where rigorous training helped refine my voice. My narrative painting Firelight Bonds, recognized at Best of Gage, exemplifies my synthesis of technical precision and instinctual storytelling. My current work explores human connection through everyday moments—often ambiguous, intimate, and quietly charged. I'm fascinated by how gesture—reaching, offering, touching—becomes the architecture of emotion in a painting. Using bold color, fractured light, and sharp angles, I evoke dreamlike spaces that blur the line between interior and exterior, real and imagined. I aim to create a narrative rhythm in each composition, inviting viewers into spaces of solitude, anticipation, and vulnerability. These paintings are not just about what is seen, but what is sensed beneath the surface.
Bringing Artistic Visions to Life in Seattle
Xin Lu is a Seattle-based painter working primarily in oils, with a practice rooted in narrative, gesture, and emotional resonance. She began painting in 2020 through self-guided study, developing a distinctive voice shaped by her intuitive approach to color and composition.
In 2023, she joined the Modern Color Atelier at Gage Academy of Art, where she deepened her technical skills and received third place in the Narrative Painting category at the annual Best of Gageexhibition for her piece Firelight Bonds. She is currently in her second year of study at the Atelier, where she continues her development through the Advanced Mentorship program with Kimberly Trowbridge. In 2025, Xin was selected to represent the Modern Color Atelier at Gage’s All Atelier Day, exhibiting her work alongside peers from across the academy..
Xin’s work balances formal precision with psychological depth, often exploring the tension between built environments and natural light. While oil is her primary medium, she also works in ink, colored pencil, and collage to explore gesture, rhythm, and mood in preparatory studies.
