Yuchen Xu

SAIC SHOWS 2025 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Graduates

SAIC SHOWS 2025 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Visual Communication Design (Graphic Design)

Yuchen Xu (b. 2000) is a visual communication artist and designer who loves to represent the natural elements, the unknown and the self through book making, illustration, photography and light art.

Falling, 2023, photo

Vase, 2024, projection and video

This projection simulates a vase placed on a windowsill, where everything except the vase itself is virtual and intangible. The project aims to highlight the idealistic and utopian functions people attribute to a vase in reality: it is expected to always hold plants that never wither. However, the truth is that the vase stands as a witness to the death of all plants placed within it.

Untitled, 2023, photo

The Windy City, 2023, book with illustrations, pg.3

This project is inspired by Chicago's nickname and my interest in the architecture along the Chicago River when I first arrived in the city. Through illustrations, I imagined how nine different buildings by the river would sway in the wind, giving form to the wind and visually representing the city's relationship with the wind.

The Windy City, 2023, book with illustrations, pg. 4

The Windy City, 2024, 2-minute projection by Yuchen Xu with sound by Cyrus Snow Spurlock, photo by Lizzie Moo

This is my second attempt to use Chicago’s nickname as inspiration. Unlike the illustrations that depict the relationship between buildings and the wind, this project focuses on giving form to the wind itself—its shape, movement, and impact on nature.

The Windy City, inspired by Chicago’s nickname, explores how wind shapes Chicago’s urban landscape. The wind bends tall buildings, impacting seasonal colors and scattering leaves to reflect the city’s changing nature in fall and winter. Sound, crafted from wind and air movements resonating through spaces, builds rhythmic contours that echo the city’s dynamic response to these forces, capturing one of the characteristics of Chicago’s environment as it interacts with the elements.

Back to group

More graduates