Katherine Qiyu Su navigates the fluid terrain between figuration and abstraction to investigate memory, perception, and emotional residue. Su earned her Master of Arts (MA) in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2023, quickly emerging as a vital voice in the contemporary landscape after winning the prestigious Artsy Foundations Prize in 2024. Her work is held in prominent public collections, including the Orange County Museum of Art.

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Central to Su’s practice is the challenge of visualizing and tracing intangible memories. Utilizing a delicate layer of oil, charcoal, ink, and pastel on linen, she intentionally erases specific environmental and bodily details. Through this deconstructive process, human forms and actions are stripped of fixed cultural or geographic preconditions, transforming instead into emotional motifs that drift in an unknown time and space. Her paintings explore the intrinsic human tensions of intimacy, vulnerability, and collective unease. Rather than projecting explosive emotional outbursts, Su uses the physical material of her canvas to filter and veil private anxieties, capturing a suspended, theatrical world where individual narratives dissolve into organic, resonant patterns.

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Su has established a highly dynamic international exhibition footprint across Europe and the United States. Her solo presentations include The Ghost in You at Future Gallery, Berlin (2025); Night Landing at Half Gallery, New York (2025); Mountains and Rivers Will Meet Again at Incubator, London; and Summer Phantoms of Desire at Edge Art Space Gallery, Turin (2024). She has additionally exhibited with Half Gallery (2024), Ojiri Gallery (2024), Alessandro Albanese Gallery (2024), Plain Gallery (2023), Studio West (2023), Candid House Projects (2023), St. Art Gallery (2023), and Thom Oosterhof Project (2023), alongside group showings at Flowers Gallery, Flowers Gallery, and Nino Mier Gallery.