Image courtesy of Parker Lily Tuson-Morse
I grew up in Istanbul estranged from my cultural background as a Chinese-Turkish minority. My painting practice explores this disorientation while revisiting and reshaping trauma. Memory, conflict, mental illness, and impermanence are subjects that permeate through my work where hybrid or humanoid figures are set in liminal spaces, and carry these themes with equal measures of humor and pain.
Painting is a channel for my personal history and a psychological process. Anthropomorphized figures function as a means of seeking connection with the non-human and mimicking the dehumanization that reverberated through my childhood as an Asian kid. Using sinister and playful imagery, I seek to simultaneously resist and embrace the uncertainty and alienation rooted in my upbringing and later immigration to the US.
(b. 2000, Istanbul, Turkey)
Based in Brooklyn, NY
EDUCATION
2023 BFA School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, USA (Full Scholarship)
2022 Central Saint Martins at UAL, London, UK
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Concessions to Impurity, The Sue Tear, Brooklyn, NY, USA (Curated by Shirley Lai)
ART FAIRS
2026 PAVILION, Fragment Gallery, Hong Kong
2026 Contemporary Art Now, Yusto/Giner Gallery, Madrid, Spain
AWARDS/RESIDENCIES
2026 Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL, USA
2025 The Macedonia Institute Artist Residency, Chatham, NY, USA
2024 The Bennett Prize 4 Finalist
2024 ChaNorth Artist Residency, Pine Plains, NY, USA
2024 Vermont Studio Center (Emily Mason - Wolf Kahn Fellowship), Johnson, VT, USA
2022 The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant
2022 Dana Pond Competition (School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University)
PRESS/PUBLICATIONS
2026 Hot Coffee Conversations, Colleen Dalusong with artist Rei Xiao
2026 New American Paintings, Northeast, Issue #182
2025 Praxis Interview Magazine hosted by Yale University Radio: Rei Xiao (By Brainard Carey)
2024 Care Book (Edited by Kimi Hamada & Anna Schneider; published by Booooooom)
2023 Tufts Now: Artists Explore the Past Through Family Photos, Dark Humor, and Lots of Hugs (by Julie Flaherty)
2018 212 Magazine, Fall/Winter, 2018-2019 Issue “Eyes”
TALKS
2024 Visiting Artist Panel, Professional Practice Course, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
2023 Moderated Panel with Exhibiting Artists of Archive and Autobiography, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA