Born in the seventies in Inner Mongolia out of a family originally hailing from Shandong, Xia Junna graduated from the Painting Department of the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts and went on to develop a bright, expressive style full of poetic flavours and feminine refinement. Her frequent exotic subjects and rich yet subtly applied palette make for dense, impressive images.

In Xia's paintings, every stroke of the brush is the result of careful consideration. The paint is dotted, daubed, smeared or slapped on with intense deliberation to produce surprising and sometimes intentionally bizarre visual effects, as if the brilliant hues and dazzling radiance had to be liberated with much labour from beneath a choking layer of leaden grey. Her compositions are suffused with a strange glow, a mysterious interplay of light and shadow that repeatedly overturns our expectations. Skillfully fusing elements of Chinese and Western aesthetics, she creates imageries of an intriguing warmth and freshness that are nonetheless steeped in an atmosphere of symbolism and surrealism. When Xia Junna burst onto China's art scene in 2000, she caused a huge stir and became an immediate impact to collectors.

Xia is particularly fond of painting women and girls, placing them in dreamlike settings where the luscious ethereal light effervesces from flowers and grass. These are tight-knit, self-contained symphonies of light and colour that do not need to rely on outside sources of illumination or meaning. Absorbed in their own tranquil, peaceful world, these female figures have no use for fashionable trends or submission to the dictates of time. Like their creator, they are quite happy and content to enjoy the pleasures found in the bright dimension of fanciful pictures.

In other words, Xia's paintings are a proper reflection of her personality, brimming with youthful romance and naïve exuberance. Yet as an artist, she is very much in control of the creative process, channeling her enthusiasm with superb instinct. Whether she puts it on thick or works her magic with intricate delicacy, her passion for the human figure and its natural environment always shine through.

'When I paint, I become totally immersed in my subject. I go for the unusual effects that come with the rearrangement of light and shadow in new, unprecedented ways. It's as if I was looking at the jagged outlines of a group of buildings in the gathering dusk: everything is right there before my eyes, but at the same time it's all vague and blurry - and it's exactly this elusiveness and ambiguity that provide ample space for my imagination.' (By Xia Junna)