Olivia Pang FRSA
Artist • Designer
Background
Olivia Pang (Xia Yu) is an artist working in Gongbi, the classical Chinese discipline of fine-line ink and layered mineral colour on silk. A graduate of the Chinese National Academy of Arts in Beijing, where she took her MFA in Traditional Chinese Art specialising in the Gongbi painting technique, she brings to portraiture a method more often reserved for the sacred image: form built slowly through translucent washes, line before shadow, patience before likeness.
Her sitters are contemporary; the language is old. Working against the Western convention of modelling by light, she gives volume through colour and contour alone, and lets the silence of unpainted silk carry as much weight as the figure itself.
Olivia has exhibited at the National Art Museum of China, the Kaiser Gallery in Germany, and the Mall Galleries in London with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, where she has been selected in three consecutive annual exhibitions and, in 2026, awarded the Daler-Rowney Materials Prize. Her 2025 solo exhibition at the London Fo Guang Shan Temple grew out of years spent copying the Buddhist cave murals of the Silk Road.
Granted a Global Talent visa in 2024, she lives and works in England.
Exhibitions & Appearances
May '26, Daler-Rowney Materials Prize, Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) Annual Exhibition - Mall Galleries
Nov '25, Dunhuang to Doncaster Chinese Arts Exhibition, Doncaster Museum.
Oct '25, Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) Drawing Prize - Hull University Art Gallery
Jun '25, A Post Industrial Picturesque, Brampton Museum
May '25, Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) Annual Exhibition - Mall Galleries
May '25 “Opening the Realm of Sacred Sounds” - solo exhibition at London Fo Guang Shan Temple
May '24 Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) Annual Exhibition - Mall Galleries
Jan '24 Global Calligraphy and Painting Art Exhibition
Aug '23 Doncaster Art Club Annual Exhibition, Doncaster Museum
May '23 Self-Portrait Prize, Ruth Borchard Collection
Jan '23 Royal Cambrian Academy Open Exhibition
Oct '22 Sky TV Portrait Artist of the Year (S9 E3)
Apr '22 Emerging Female Painter Prize (Longlisted)
May '21 Pearl Chains on Silk Road Mural Project
Oct '18 “Arts China—Cologne” - Museum Ludwig, Germany
Jun '18 Graduates' Exhibition, Chinese National Academy of Arts - Yanhuang Art Museum (winning the Work of an Exceptional Standard Prize, with artworks added to the permanent collection)
Dec '17 Master of Fine Arts Invitation Exhibition, Beijing Bobao Gallery
Nov '17 Wisdom Essence Student Work Exhibition
May '17 Young Contemporary Chinese Painters Nomination Exhibition
May '17 Chunfeng Run Academy's Young Chinese Painters' Academic Exhibition, Chinese Painting Creation Research Institute Art Gallery
Oct '16 Graduate Work of the First Advanced Training Course, Gongbi Academy of the Chinese National Academy of Arts Exhibition, Baolong Art Gallery
Jul '15 Gongbi Invitational Exhibition, Eastern Center of Contemporary Art (later collected by Jin Ri Dan Qing art museum in Beijing)
Jun '15 "Beautiful China" Painting Exhibition, National Art Museum of China
Contact
Email:
oliviaxypang@gmail.com