Sal Xu

---

Bio

Sal Xu (b. 2003, Beijing) is an artist based between New York and Rhode Island. They received their BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (2021–2025). Xu’s interdisciplinary practice spans installation, performance, sculpture, and image-making, exploring abstract timelines and fragile connections through metaphors and translucent forms.

Statement

That windy city where I spent my childhood, people call it the city of kites. We spent countless weekends on the damp grass, sitting, watching, running along with those structures that fly. The air was always humid, warm, easing the slight pain in between my fingers for holding the reel too long. I was never a great pilot, they navigate and I follow. Sometimes I lose focus, letting that floating structure simply be an extension of myself, pinpointing half of me down on the earth, the other half wrapped in a wind too far to see clearly. Sometimes it trembles down through the far-stretching string back into my hand, beautiful vibrations, a private wind language. 

        I moved back to Beijing, where people aren’t as enthusiastic with the kites, it was still common to look up and find one somewhere floating above, far enough that the strings are invisible. Why is it there, at this current moment? Occasionally, I chase that kite, walking across the city hoping to run into it, at least its anchor, its other half, what’s possibly holding it. But as I move, they move too. Between us there’s the wind again, much colder, opaque, translucent, completely invisible, yet connecting me to an answer that might be imagined. When the kites fall out of sight, where am I heading then?  

        Working primarily with installation, sculpture, performance and photography, my practice investigates fragile connections between events through tentative metaphors--metaphors that tremble down the invisible strings holding together all the structures around me-- aiming to explore abstract timelines spatially. Liminal materials such as silicone, resin and water frequently come into play, and translucency has become my tool for arranging the confusions that lie beneath the complex causations of everyday life.

Website: https://www.salxu.net

Instagram: 5al_pplex