image making — Echo Xu

P002 → Image Making

I build images using the logic of printmaking, fusing flora and fauna into dense, unruly fields. There is an anxiety in letting these elements rush across the surface, in the fear of excess, overlap, and loss of control. This is followed by an opposing urge to clean, contain, and reorganize them into cute shapes with defined edges.

The image moves back and forth between overflow and restraint, between organic spread and imposed order. Within this tension, control becomes both a comfort and a source of unease.

Fishing for the moon


7 * 3 feet
mix media
October, 2023

Fishing for the Moon is a meditation on the elusive nature of home. Made from discarded cardboard used in furniture packaging, the installation 
captures the disorientation, stress, and impermanence of moving in and out—never fully settling. Cardboard, a material tied to both protection 
and disposability, reflects the fragile attempts to construct comfort in transitory spaces. The title references the poetic image of trying to grasp
the moon’s reflection in water: as soon as you reach for it, it disappears. In the same way, the idea of “home” remains just out of reach—longed 
for, momentarily glimpsed, but never fixed. This project gives form to that longing, building a space that is always in the process of being unbuilt.









Flyers


55 * 55 inch 
mix media on canvas 
April, 2024









Hug


Oil and watercolor on paper 
30 * 30 inch
December, 2022

What are you looking at while on the phone 


42 * 36 inch 
mix media on canvas 
April, 2024

This work uses image transfers of FaceTime screenshots as its background, all without a visible person in the frame. Over these empty interfaces, fragments of patterned clothing appear as if mid-change, suggesting an attempt to adjust one’s appearance for the screen. The absence of a visible viewer creates uncertainty. The other person may be watching, may be present but off-screen, or may not be looking at all. The work reflects how online communication enforces self-presentation even without confirmation, turning intimacy into a quiet, unreciprocated performance.

Annuciation


48*42 inch
mix media on canvas
April, 2024
This painting is based on a construction-site sewer access opening, a structure meant to remain hidden andpurely functional. The central circular form echoes the manhole, while branching white lines interrupt it like a sudden arrival or message.
Titled Annunciation, the work reimagines revelation as something that emerges from below ground rather than descending from above. 
Infrastructure becomes a site of exposure and possibility, where systems of order momentarily loosen and allow transformation to surface.

The shadow says : shhhh


30 * 22 inch 
watercolor silksreen on paper 
December, 2023

This depicts plants and animals existing alongside a structure that symbolizes human construction, casting an immense shadow that limits approach and growth. Rather than depicting collapse directly, the image lingers on proximity, scale, and quiet exclusion. The print reflects my ongoing interest in how systems assert presence not only through force, but through shadow, repetition, and silence.

Sunrise
8 * 11 inch 
watercolor silksreen on paper 
December, 2023

Moth
8 * 11 inch 
watercolor silksreen on paper 
October, 2023

What if the first land animal/plant choose to retreat?

6 * 6 feet
mix media
November, 2023

Leeeavvvvvves

20 * 24 inch
mix media
October, 2023

First day of semester, raining

20 * 24 inch
oil on gesso board
February, 2023

The beach man with dotted pants

42 * 42 inch
oil on canvas
April, 2023

Dotted pants escape

34 * 46 inch
oil on canvas, paper
April, 2023

Dotted pants jump

30 * 40 inch
oil on canvas, paper
March, 2023

Domesticated

(ancient wild type plants domesticated by industrilized kitchenware)
4 * 6 feet
Area rug, fabric samples, found kitchenware
May, 2023

Between a Rock and a hard place

(ancient wild type plants fight in a battle with GMO corn, and are trapped to a cliff)
4* 7 feet
acylics, sharpies, color pastel on paper
May, 2023

Passengers

40 * 50 inch
ink, oil pastel, sharpies, magzine cut outs
April, 2023



Smoke after fire  


8 * 10 inch 
watercolor silkscreen, wood block print 
May, 2022










Wind under water  


8 * 10 inch 
watercolor silkscreen, wood block print 
May, 2022