Biography

Huixian Wang / Mercury.N

Mercury is a Chinese artist currently based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Working across photography and mixed media, Her practice examines how personal narratives are shaped and interpreted by social frameworks. Drawing from experiences across different cultural contexts, she is interested in how images reveal or reshape these narratives. She uses photography as both a documentary and speculative tool to explore themes of self-representation and the complexities of human connection. Her work inhabits spaces of ambiguity. In her work, private experiences intersect with public expectations and identities remain fluid. Through tactile forms of engagement, she investigates how experiences that resist visibility can be encountered and shared.

Artist Statement

Love Letter

Whisper, The Temperature of Snow, Dance With Me, Treasure, and Entwined are drawn from Love Letter, a series of works that reflects on the visible yet concealed nature of queer intimacy within the cultural context in which the artist grew up, while also questioning how affection, identity, and emotional connection are interpreted through social assumptions. The project further considers how marginalised relationships continue to exist and negotiate visibility in the absence of open public discussion and social recognition.

The work originates from a personal experience in which the love letters exchanged between the artist and her partner were reframed by family members as jokes between friends. It was only upon discovering a hidden, unopened letter that the artist realised this was not a misunderstanding, but rather an avoidance of queer affection. This quiet act of avoidance became central to the project.

Through layered compositions, Mercury overlays separated figures from different photographs to reconstruct gestures of intimacy such as kissing and dancing. Within these layered photographic images, the figures appear simultaneously connected and distant, present yet partially obscured. Braille is embossed at points of overlap, containing excerpts from love letters exchanged between a queer couple, forming intimate texts that may initially appear unreadable or unfamiliar.

Through the intersection of image and tactile experience, Love Letter considers how intimacy persists within conditions of ambiguity. It also examines how affection can exist beyond recognition, visibility, and social affirmation. The work invites viewers to consider what remains unseen or unspoken, and how these absences shape understanding.

Cirriculum Vitae

Education:
MA Illustration, Edinburgh College of Art, UK
BA Digital Media Art, Shenzhen University, China

Selected Exhibitions:
2026 Getxophoto Festival, Algorta, Spain
2026 Bodies Luminous, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, USA

2026 Annual Summer Juried Exhibition, Viridian Artists, New York, USA
WHISPERer, London Craft Week, London, UK
Archetypes, Glena Art Studio, London, UK
2025 Echoes of Time, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, UK

Publications:
2026 Sole Featured Artist, Dek Unu Magazine, July Issue, USA
2026 Featured Artist, Collect Art Magazine, Summer Issue, Georgia

2026 A Celebration of Contemporary Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, USA

Awards:
2026 First Prize, Summer Juried Exhibition, Viridian Artists Gallery, New York, USA