Picnic Time by Zoee Xiao

Picnic Time
Zoee Xiao
Acrylic On canvas
20”h x 16”w -  framed
2024

During the pandemic, we briefly connected with a raccoon friend, who knocked on our backyard door and politely asked for more cake after the initial batch. He was so skillful of human gestures and polite that it was comical. He brought such joy to us during the dark days of the pandemic lockdown. This painting was created to cherish that memory and as a good reminder of how little things can affect life positively. 

Get to Know the Austin Artist:
Zoee is a multi-media painter, focusing on watercolor and acrylic with a minimalist and impressionist style. Art and nature has been an important part of her life since a young age. She grew up in a beautiful southern town in China and was trained under a sumi-e painter at a young age. After growing up, she moved to the United States to study animation and computer graphics at the University of Pennsylvania, and then started working as a gaming software engineer after graduation.

But her love for art continued strongly. She spent years developing her artist career while working as a full time engineer.The eastern and western influence on her moved her to incorporate minimalist eastern aesthetic into colorful western aesthetic. The process of making art also helped her tremendously when dealing with stress and depression from her engineer job. Now she is a full time artist, she wants to channel such healing power to her audience through her art, helping them ease the stress and pain in modern life.