About The Work
Cresting Figure is a mixed digital media work presenting an evocative form that gracefully inhabits the space between abstraction and figuration. Inspired by traditional Chinese embroidery, Xie employs rich textures and intricate patterns to evoke cultural heritage. Through the use of hand collage, algorithms, and AI, the piece bridges the traditional and the modern by reimagining ancient techniques within a contemporary framework.

Artist Biography
Emily Xie is a visual artist living in NYC. She works with code and computation to create lifelike textures and forms. She draws inspiration from physical media such as textiles, collage, and wallpaper, and examines them within a technological context. Her digital work explores how diverse materials and patterns intermix to create cohesive visuals infused with themes of mythology, memory, tradition, and heritage.

Xie's generative systems often navigate many delicate balances at once: the interplays between chance versus control, the organic versus the systematic, the traditional versus the modern, and the abstract versus the representational. Her algorithms question the relationship between human touch and computational processes, and incorporates elements of skeuomorphism to challenge perceptions of materiality. In particular, Xie often emphasizes the intersection of computation and textile arts, referencing the historical and sensory richness of fabrics and mixed media

Xie's creative coding work is collected and shown internationally. Recently, she has exhibited at the United Nations Headquarters, Singapore ArtScience Museum, Kunsthalle Zürich, Unit London, the Armory Show, Bright Moments, Times Square, the StandardVision Artist Showcase throughout the city of Los Angeles.

Prior to pursuing art full-time, Emily built a career as a software engineer while exploring and teaching herself creative coding on the side. She worked within various programming domains including devtooling, visualization, and machine learning.