Suspended in Amber: Xingxin Hu

She Gets Bored, 2024, Oil on canvas, 58 x 58 cm

In a quiet moment of reflection, between glances and gestures, between tension and release, a woman admires her own fingers in the mirror: bored, perhaps, but also awake to something unspoken. It’s from this fleeting image that She Gets Bored (and Other Truths) begins, a body of work that lingers in the still, charged space between defined emotions. Presented as the inaugural exhibition on the Studio Veive platform, this latest series by London-based artist Xingxin Hu explores the quiet, tender spaces that shape a woman’s inner experience. In this conversation we spoke about her fascination with the in-between: with boredom as quiet rebellion, with solitude as revelation, with slowness as a form of resistance.

Let’s begin with the title: It's understated yet charged. What does boredom mean in the context of feminine interiority or rebellion?

The title actually came from this image I had in my head of a woman who’s just... really bored, so bored that she starts admiring her own fingers in the mirror, almost in a playful way. This kind of boredom is fleeting, personal, and vulnerable. A moment when all the roles and expectations society puts on her fade away. No one’s watching, and something real slips through. That unguarded, in-between space where the soul quietly shows itself,  that’s the kind of moment I keep coming back to in my work.

Why do you think you’re constantly drawn to this in-between space?

I would say that this in-between space forms the core of my practice. I know it’s a theme that’s been explored often, but I remain deeply fascinated by those ambiguous zones between defined emotions or states of being: suspicious desires, fragile self-assurance, that fleeting sense of boredom mentioned earlier. There’s a distinct human glow in that space, complex, unresolved, hard to put into words. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to explore and express through images.

In what ways did you approach this series differently from your previous work? Were there any new tensions or themes that emerged unexpectedly?

At this stage in my work, I’ve started bringing in more still life elements. And while doing that, I’ve become more conscious of observing and painting the female body the same way I’d look at a still life.  Focusing on shapes and lines, the "texture" of skin, and the poetic placement of highlights. It’s my way of creating a sense of quietness, something that lingers and sometimes even feels a bit monumental.

You’re right, these close ups, they do feel monumental, and almost slightly cinematic… was that intentional?

Yes, the still life parts kind of work like the “empty shots” in films, (which I love). You know, those quiet frames where nothing’s really happening, but they give the whole film space to breathe. They might seem insignificant at first glance, but to me, they actually play a crucial role in creating rhythm and emotional depth.

Let's touch on your process, how do you begin a new work?

I don’t really have a fixed way of starting a piece. Sometimes the image comes first like a scene from a film where a character I love is sitting in a chair, and I’m just drawn to the way the light hits her shirt, the sheen of the fabric…and that makes me want to paint it. Other times, it starts with something more abstract or subtle, like a feeling I’ve experienced in real life. In those cases, I’ll try to translate that emotion into visuals through a mix of references, sketches, and studies, kind of building the image from the inside out.

Domestic objects and bodily fragments recur in these works, yet they don’t feel illustrative. What do these motifs hold for you emotionally or symbolically?

I think I return again and again to domestic objects and bodily fragments because they’re the things closest to me: things I see, touch, and live with every day. They carry emotional traces of my private life, so it feels natural for me to use them as a way to turn personal feelings or experiences into something more universal, something that resonates with a broader female, or even human, experience.

They’re often extremely ordinary, or only partially shown, which is probably why they don’t feel directly illustrative. They hint at human experience without fully revealing it. I also like shifting their scale, making them larger or isolating them to create a strange sense of intimacy. Something that feels both personal and monumental. In the end, I think I’m trying to create a kind of stillness, like holding a feeling in place, as if it’s suspended in amber.

Your latest body of work explores an uneasy choreography between interior perception and external expectation. Do you think your figures are resisting, conforming, or perhaps simply observing those expectations?

I actually hope I haven’t given a clear answer in the work. That uncertainty feels more honest. Like how I feel in real life, I often catch myself automatically going along with certain expectations, even ones that don’t really line up with how I see myself. But then I notice it, I sort of step outside of it and realize how much of that response has been shaped by social conditioning. And once I become aware of it, resistance starts to build. So it feels more like a shifting process.

To me, this shift feels like an invitation to linger in intimacy. Do you think this slowness shapes the way your work is experienced?

I’m really glad you brought up the idea of slowness…it means a lot to me, because it tells me that the atmosphere I’ve been trying to build is coming through. My earlier works used to lean more heavily on narrative, but over time, my understanding of painting as a visual medium has progressed. I’ve come to feel that its power doesn’t lie in storytelling, but in something more emotional, more abstract.

What does this abstraction allow you to achieve?

I’ve gradually moved away from direct narratives and toward creating mood, tone, and presence. Slowness is one of the key elements in the shift. It leads the viewer to feel the image, to enter a sensory, emotional experience, rather than approach the painting as something to be read or decoded.

I want to maintain a certain visual simplicity in my work, it’s something I’ve always valued and tried to hold onto. So sometimes I crop the figure simply for compositional or aesthetic reasons. But there’s something else, too: I think I’m often deliberately leaving out clear information, like ones that might point too directly to a specific person, time, or place. I seem to have this instinct to keep things a bit vague or open-ended. I'm still not entirely sure whether that’s a strength or a limitation, but it’s something I keep returning to.

The female figures in your work often appear alone. What does solitude represent to you in these emotional landscapes?

It just happens naturally that the women in my work are often alone. I think it’s because when someone’s by themselves, without being watched, without having to respond to anyone else, that’s when something real emerges: that’s the moment I want to capture. So solitude in my paintings feels like a passage through which I can reveal something hidden.

Lastly, what truths, bored or otherwise, are you still curious to explore?

I think I will continue to be curious about exploring and revealing the complexity of humanity: especially women, their emotions, desires, and states of being.