Yuyu Zhitong

BIOGRAPHY

Yuyu Zhitong (b. 1993, Guangzhou, China) is a London-based contemporary painter whose practice sits at the intersection of movement, intuition, and analytical thought. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2023 and the Slade School of Fine Art at UCL in 2020 with First-Class Honours, following an exchange at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  

Zhitong’s work is known for its vibrant chromatic language and sweeping gestural compositions. Her background in traditional and contemporary Chinese dance gives her paintings a physical and choreographic presence, while her fascination with natural sciences and logic shapes the underlying structure of her visual worlds. Through this duality she constructs canvases that move fluidly between abstraction and figuration, where intuition and rationality are held in constant dialogue.

Her imagery draws from a wide constellation of influences: anime heroines from the 1980s and 1990s, Cantonese pop culture, romantic landscapes, cinematic references, and moments of digital or emotional memory. These threads merge into layered narratives that invite viewers into a realm where fantasy, movement, and introspection coexist.

Zhitong has exhibited internationally with recent presentations at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 2024, Palm Gallery in Taiwan in 2024, and a solo exhibition at cadet capela in Paris in 2023. Her works form part of public and private collections, including Fundación MEDIANOCHE0 in Spain.  

Her presentation with Volery Gallery in Dubai introduces her energetic and poetic practice to audiences in the Middle East, where her cross-cultural sensibility and dynamic approach to contemporary painting resonate strongly with the region’s evolving artistic landscape.