Rui XU [pronounced ‘Ray Shu’ ], a London based painter using oils in fine art.

Translating the discipline of Chinese brush-and-ink culture into the materially assertive language of oil pigment, she builds her canvases through a calligraphic logic: stroke-by-stroke decisions in which structure and sensibility are inseparable. Dense impasto and knife-driven striations enlarge brushwork into tactile inscription, while horizons, atmospheres, and shifting bands of distance evoke a handscroll-like journey—an image experienced as movement in time and space rather than a single fixed viewpoint. Her landscapes do not aim to describe nature; they function as “inner landscapes,” where weather and terrain become proxies for temperament, memory, and ethical attention, and where nature is treated as a rigorous teacher of endurance, restraint, and renewal. 

She is currently a Doctoral Researcher and a Full Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). 

Previously, XU was the head of the Fashion Department at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2012 and was appointed Associate Professor in 2013, serving until 2016. During postgraduate research at the Royal College of Art, she founded RUIXU Studio in London in 2015, which quickly attracted an international clientele from the cultural and creative industries. In 2016, she contributed mask designs to the London Animal Ball, helping raise £1.7 million for Elephant Family, the UK’s largest wildlife charity supported by King Charles III, alongside leading luxury brands.

Xu has presented solo exhibitions and multidisciplinary performances at world-renowned institutions including Christie’s (London), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Saatchi Gallery, and the Zaha Hadid Design Gallery, as well as at universities and cultural institutions such as Aalto University, the University of Michigan, the University of California, and the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, among others.

Her couture collection Xiang Wang Yi, grounded in Chinese classical fashion aesthetics, together with its accompanying publication, has received multiple international awards: the Red Dot Design Award (Berlin), the Design for Asia Gold Award (Hong Kong), the Most Beautiful Book of China (Shanghai), the Silver Award at the China National Fine Art Exhibition, and recognition from the Tokyo Type Directors Club (Japan).

Her works are represented in permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Zaha Hadid family, Clarence House, and the China Silk Museum, among other institutions, organisations, and private collectors.

Her designs have also been featured in Vogue Italia, Porsche’s Christophorus magazine, as well as other leading industry publications and academic journals.