When Intuition Leads the Way in Art | Xinyue Tao
In this thoughtful interview for the Arts to Hearts Project, we speak with London-based artist Xinyue Tao, whose work gently explores time, memory, and identity through photography, installation, and performance.
In it, she opens up about her creative process, the influence of her childhood in Yunnan, and how intuition plays a central role in her art. We learn how she stays connected to home while living far away, embraces uncertainty in her work, and uses each medium to reveal something new about herself.
Xinyue reflects on her time at the Royal College of Art and how it shaped her practice and sense of self. This conversation gives us a glimpse into the quiet power of presence, transformation, and inner connection through art.
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Xinyue Tao’s practice explores the perception of time and space through the lens of self-identity, memory, and the unconscious. Working across photography, installation, and performance, she follows intuition as a central method of creation to reveal the fluid interplay between inner and outer realities. Her recent works delve into the shifting boundaries between dream and waking life, where presence, absence, and transformation are visualised through image, gesture, and material.
Tao reflects on impermanence and the embodied traces of time by engaging with light-sensitive materials, slow processes, and symbolic rituals. Xinyue Tao (b.1998, Kunming) graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Photography in 2024. She currently lives and works in London. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Photo|Frome (2025, Frome), Season at Woolwich Works (2025, London), Offprint Project, Tate Modern (2024, London), Lan Gallery (2024, Beijing), Pushkin House (2024, London), and the RCA Degree Show (2024, London).
1. How did growing up in Yunnan shape how you see and create art today?
Although I’ve been away from Yunnan for many years, it still holds my childhood—a sense of familiarity, a gentle, tranquil atmosphere. What stays with me are not grand scenes, but detailed moments and the feelings attached to them: a sliver of light, the shadow of a tree, a corner filled with plants, smoke curling under a streetlamp. This shaped my sensitivity to atmosphere and the emotional quality of a scene. My perception is often detail-oriented, and I’m drawn to the subtle relationships that exist quietly in everyday life.
The work is the artist—the piece is you.
Xinyue Tao
2. How do you stay connected to your memories while living and working far from home?
Through dreaming—just kidding (or maybe not). I often find myself transported back to memories through subtle sensations in a new environment. Strangely, after moving to London, memories of my childhood and my relationship with family became more vivid. I started longing for a sense of human connection. This is reflected in my work Connection(2023): two lemons, similar yet different, physically distant but linked by a wire, nourishing each other. It mirrors my relationship with home, distance bridged by invisible threads. That image came from a dream, a link between the subconscious and conscious, between dream and reality.
3. When you’re creating from your intuition, how do you handle moments of doubt?
I doubt myself quite often (laughs). Especially when working with mediums that don’t promise a clear outcome, like lumen prints, which require waiting and embracing unpredictability, it’s precisely that uncertainty that deeply attracts me. I’ve realised that trying to control everything often takes me further from the core of my work. Intuition is the ability to stay physically honest in chaos and ensure the work remains sincere. I try to bring my focus back to the act: the feeling of my hand touching the material, the rhythm of my breath. Meditation also helps a lot—it’s my most direct way of connecting to intuition. Sometimes after meditating, I’ll draw what I felt during that time. That becomes my way of returning to trust in the intuitive process.
4. What have you learned about yourself by working with materials like photography, sculpture, or performance?
Photography makes me highly sensitive to detail—I often translate an emotion into a visual symbol. Sculpture, however, helps me work more instinctively with space and the relationship between objects. I’m fascinated by the subtle energy and balance that materials create together. Performance reveals something even more profound—an impulse that feels genuinely embodied. It’s a form of expression that comes from the body rather than language, making it deeply honest. I’ve learned that each medium draws out different layers of myself.
Intuition, to me, is the ability to stay physically honest in chaos—to make sure the work remains sincere.
Xinyue Tao
5. How did your time at RCA help you grow, not just as an artist, but as a person?
During my time at RCA, I began creating in a way that was different from how I approached work. I started with making, experimenting, and responding to materials first, rather than beginning with a concept. That shift helped me build trust in my intuition. It taught me that your work will speak for itself, and your energy will come through it. It was also the first time I deeply reflected on the question: Who am I? In a different cultural context, I had to seek a new sense of belonging and confront the fragmentation and reconstruction of self-identity. My works during this period honestly reflected that search.
6. Do you ever feel like your art helps you understand yourself better, especially the parts you don’t always see clearly?
Absolutely. My art practice began as a way to understand better who I am. I believe the work is the artist—the piece is you. There were times of intense self-doubt. In my work, brushing [MY] teeth, for example, I perform the act of brushing my teeth in a mirror. It captured a moment of daily chaos and the disoriented embodiment I was experiencing during the “mirror stage”. That work, and others like it, became milestones in my journey of self-discovery—moments that only made sense in hindsight, but were deeply intuitive while I was making them.
Xinyue Tao’s artwork is a delicate exploration of memory, time, and selfhood—woven through light, gesture, and presence. Her intuitive approach invites us to slow down, to notice the subtle, often overlooked emotions and connections that shape our lives. Through photography, sculpture, and performance, Xinyue reveals how art can bridge the conscious and unconscious, between home and distance, and between the seen and the felt. From her childhood memories in Yunnan to her time at RCA, her journey teaches us the value of embracing uncertainty, trusting intuition, and using art to stay present, honest, and deeply human.
To learn more about Xinyue, click the following links to visit her profile.
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