Xia Peng transforms art history into a fluid, dreamlike experience that challenges our understanding of culture, history, and belonging. Familiar Western iconography is reborn in unfamiliar palettes, harmonizing and clashing with diverse cultural references—from ancient Egyptian art and European iconography to Buddhist iconography. Xia reimagines historical images through "ambiguity of information," layering perspectives and invoking a "cultural unconscious" that is alluring and disorienting.

Xia Peng’s art world is full of tension that scratches the brain. He turns the history of art into fluid and re-cast them in a mould of his vision, creating worlds that transcend the rigid periodized boundary of art and cultural history. Looking at his works, we glimpse familiar iconography from the Western art history reinvented with an unfamiliar color palette and surrealist elements (dis)harmonizing with landscape paintings. This fluidity is a manifestation of his embodied experience of moving between cultures—particularly Chinese and German—though, in our globalized world, these influences are far from strictly binary. Xia Peng carefully selects images from diverse historical and cultural origins—ancient Egyptian art, European Renaissance religious paintings, ancient Chinese Buddhist iconography, and mythological figures—to emphasize the interconnectedness of world cultures, each shaped by a continuous process of migration and transformation. Rather than directly replicating historical images, he employs a technique he calls “ambiguity of information,” manipulating these sources through layered perspectives, unexpected juxtapositions, and intentional obfuscations. His approach creates a sense of dislocation, inviting the viewer to question their assumptions about the essentialism of history and its impact on the present. For Xia, these images tap into a “cultural unconscious,” evoking both familiar memories and an underlying sense of disquiet. Xia Peng’s airy color palette and compositions contrast with the complexity of identity and cultural belonging. While his world initially entices with a surreal escapism, it ultimately holds up a mirror to reality, inviting viewers to uncover its hidden layers and connections.