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Traces by Sigrid Qian

B. China. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Sigrid Qian's multidisciplinary practice navigates the liminal spaces between memory and materiality, consciousness and the ethereal unknown. Her work emerges from a profound investigation of how personal and collective histories intersect with spiritual and subconscious realms, challenging our understanding of what constitutes reality and perception.

Working primarily in painting, Qian employs a sophisticated layering technique that combines oil paint, soft pastels, and graphite to construct visual experiences that oscillate between opacity and translucence. This methodical building of surfaces becomes a metaphor for the accumulation of memory itself—each layer simultaneously concealing and revealing what lies beneath, much like the way our minds process and store experience.

Her canvases function as portals into psychological landscapes where time becomes elastic and identity remains in constant flux. Through her distinctive visual language, Qian explores themes of impermanence and continuity, creating works that hover between the ephemeral and the concrete. Ghostly forms emerge and recede within her compositions, suggesting figures, architectures, or landscapes that resist definitive interpretation, inviting viewers to project their own memories and associations onto the work.

The artist's Chinese heritage and Los Angeles residency inform a unique perspective on cultural displacement and belonging. This dual identity manifests in her work through a synthesis of Eastern philosophical concepts—particularly notions of void and presence—with Western painterly traditions. The result is a body of work that speaks to universal experiences of transformation, loss, and regeneration while maintaining deeply personal resonances.

Qian's paintings demand slow, contemplative viewing. As observers engage with her work over time, new details and relationships emerge from the layered surfaces, mirroring the way memories surface and recede in our consciousness. Through this temporal unfolding, her art becomes a meditation on the very nature of perception, asking us to question

Saltwater | 2025

Tresspass | 2025

Jade | 2025