Reframing Space and Perception: The Psychological Landscapes of Sharon Yaoxi He

Sharon Yaoxi He is a renowned Chinese-Canadian painter based in New York City and New Jersey. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University’s prestigious MFA program and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. She has developed a distinctive visual language that bridges philosophical inquiry with painterly innovation. Her work has been widely exhibited at prominent institutions and galleries, including the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, and the Vancouver International Art Fair. In June 2025, she is scheduled to present a duo exhibition at Thomas Erben Gallery, a presentation that reflects the conceptual ambition and critical maturity of her work within today’s painting discourse.

Sharon Yaoxi He

Informed by philosophical inquiry and classical artistic traditions, Sharon Yaoxi He’s paintings offer a compelling reimagination of space. Rather than treating space as a fixed, measurable entity, she approaches it as a dynamic, psychological experience shaped by perception. Influenced by Immanuel Kant’s assertion that space and time are subjective frameworks of human understanding, she constructs compositions that challenge conventional visual logic, inviting viewers to navigate emotionally resonant, perceptually fluid environments.

Rejecting the rigidity of single-point perspective rooted in Western Renaissance painting, Sharon instead employs layered viewpoints and multiple vanishing points to develop a more expansive and intuitive mode of seeing. This visual language allows the eye to travel through shifting depths and fragmented planes, evoking not a destination but a rhythmic journey. “Perspective isn’t locked into one viewpoint,” Sharon notes, drawing inspiration from ancient Chinese landscape painting, “it’s atmospheric, temporal, and layered.” This unfolding spatial logic reflects an understanding of perception as fundamentally subjective and evolving. It is not something captured in a single glance, but rather something experienced over time.

Central to this approach is the use of color, not merely as a visual component but also as a structuring and narrative force. “Color becomes the language I use to communicate psychological and atmospheric experiences,” she explains. By focusing on the relationships between colors, rather than predetermined forms or representational goals, their compositions emerge organically. The process is one of responsiveness rather than control, allowing form and space to be shaped by chromatic tension and emotional resonance.

This intuitive method marks a rejection of over-determined structure in favor of openness and vulnerability. The paintings are constructed from within, shaped psychologically, perceptually, and emotionally. They are free from external reference points or imposed logic. The result is a body of work that resists categorization, functioning less as representations of space than as perceptual fields in which viewers may lose and find themselves.

By grounding their practice in both philosophical and historical frameworks while embracing abstraction and emotional immediacy, Sharon creates works that blur the boundaries between vision and sensation, thought and experience. Their paintings are not objects to be viewed from a distance, but environments that unfold through the viewer’s active engagement with the ever-shifting dynamics of perception itself.

Author: Zin

31st of May, 2025