Annie Xu ’22 is a four-year Senior from Shanghai, China. She was an editor-in-chief of the 123th Editorial Board of The Record, the Art Director of ink., a co-head of Art Club, a MacLeish Scholar, and a member of the fly fishing program. Next year, she plans to attend Princeton, where she will major in English or philosophy. Currently, she is taking AR492S, Honors Advanced Studio Art Portfolio and HI485Y, Honors Art History.
What sparked your interest in visual arts?
I grew up with a dream of becoming an architect. When I was a kid, one of my favorite pastimes was drawing imaginary buildings in very distorted and even silly perspectives, because I wasn’t born with the most artistic hands. For that reason, I later started to go to art studios to learn drawing and painting. This architectural dream still somewhat persists after almost 10 years, and I find in myself a continued admiration for architecture’s beauty on such a grand scale, and just its fundamental ability to redefine how humans interact with our surrounding space, which is incredibly powerful. Similarly for fine arts, I always believe that all architects are intrinsically artists as well. There is something so free yet tangible in painting and drawing. Being able to compel some craft to communicate an entirely new world from a blank slate captivates me.
How has the studio arts program impacted your artistic journey?
I am a four-year studio art student, having taken humanities art, as well as upper level electives in art portfolio and architecture. This sequence of classes honed my techniques step-by-step and also taught me how to create art instead of just rendering. But more importantly I am beyond grateful for Mr. J. Bradley Faus, director of the art program and instructor in art, my art teacher for four years. He wholeheartedly supported my artistic visions from day one and had absolute faith in all of my ambitions. In his classes, I was constantly challenged to reflect upon what art and architecture mean to me. I will soon be graduating and walking out of Mr. Faus’ classroom as a completely transformed person and artist from Prep year.
What has inspired you and influenced your artistic style?
From my family, hometown, and identity, to philosophy, literature and music, virtually everything I interact with and appreciate has made its way into my artwork’s subject matter, form, or concept. Even though I don’t have a particularly consistent formal style, I enjoy multivalent experiences. For a lot of my pieces, I like to combine both abstract and representational elements, and this interplay between different styles makes my art-making process more dynamic and engaging. Similarly, I love making mixed media pieces. Balancing a variety of textures in one piece is always a delightful challenge.
What piece have you made that you are proudest of?
I am really proud of a series of work I did during my Upper Mid and Senior years that focused on the themes of frames and framing. I made multiple works exploring how literal and metaphorical frames could divide, enclose, or exclude and how those boundaries could be symbolically subverted. In one piece, Unbounded, I explored the frames of artworks in museums. I tried to turn frames, which are often ignored as peripheral visual elements, into the central subject matter of my piece and ask what defines art and its limits. Aside from that, I also created several labyrinth-like landscape collages by deconstructing architectural frameworks. That was my first time creating a body of work with a sustained focus on one particular motif, so it has been a fulfilling journey.
Going forward, how will you continue pursuing visual arts?
This summer, I will be interning for a fine press publishing house to learn about printmaking and bookmaking, which is a different and exciting extension of my past studio art experience. Beyond that, I look forward to taking more classes in art and architecture at college, as well as classes in the humanities department that incorporate artistic ideas, because interdisciplinary practice is central to what I aspire to do. I hope that art and architecture will always be a part of my future studies, career, or life in general.
