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Rosemary Kennedy, painting by Vincent Xeus
Jackie Kennedy hands, painting by Vincent Xeus
Neverland, painting detail from LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women by Vincent Xeus
Painting detail from LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women by Vincent Xeus

LIGHT \ POWER光 \ 象

The Kennedy Women

Where does the human light persist inside the architectures of power?

LIGHT \ POWER Exhibition by Vincent Xeus focuses on the Kennedy Women as individuals navigating forces larger than themselves. These include lineage, inherited myth, circumstance, chance, and the quiet inertia of history. The work turns from the question of who holds power to what it does to interior life. They enter an environment shaped by power, whose scale often exceeds what any single life can hold, composed of forces that are at once protective, violent, mythic, and indifferent.

Born in China and coming of age during the arc of globalization and its reversal, Xeus approaches this distinctly American narrative through a lens forged by the rise and fragmentation of global structures. His sensitivity to identity and shifting systems informs a view of the subjects as figures formed within mutable, impersonal frameworks. This orientation shifts the gaze from assertion to endurance, and resolution to continuity.

In Xeus's paintings, abstraction defines the structure of power by collapsing historical, familial and political force into matrix-like fields of color, gesture and space. Figuration introduces the human presence through the subject, whose posture, light and outline resist and inhabit those fields.

Against this expanse, each figure holds a contained and steady illumination. The paintings trace how identity reveals itself within the systems that shape it, and how a life maintains its interior light within the architectures through which it must move.

Selected Works

Act I

GRID

What is the shape of light, inside power?

Rose Window, tapestry from LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women, exhibition by contemporary artist Vincent Xeus
Neverland, installation view from LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women, exhibition by contemporary artist Vincent Xeus
Act II

FILM

Time, cut and arranged.

Film, painting from LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women by Vincent Xeus
Vessel, painting by Vincent Xeus, LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women exhibition
Act III

CONTACT

Surface holds force.

Installation view, LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women by Vincent Xeus
Act IV

ATOM

The light persists.

Trinity, painting from LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women by Vincent Xeus
蘇川 · Vincent Xeus

"The images didn't hold still."

— VINCENT XEUS
War Wagon, painting by Vincent Xeus
I
S, painting by Vincent Xeus
II
Rodin Menace, painting by Vincent Xeus
V
We Are and Are Not, painting by Vincent Xeus
III
Earth, painting by Vincent Xeus
IV
Love is my Profession, painting by Vincent Xeus
VI
Harper in Snow, painting by Vincent Xeus
VII
Show Business, painting by Vincent Xeus
VIII
The Philosophy of Blue, painting by Vincent Xeus
X
The Rest of You are Just Visiting, painting by Vincent Xeus
IX
The Princess, painting by Vincent Xeus
XIV
Jewel, painting by Vincent Xeus
XI
Figure #10, painting by Vincent Xeus
XII
Elizabeth in Tadema Sky, painting by Vincent Xeus
XIII
A Case of Man, painting by Vincent Xeus
XV
The Portrait Concept, painting by Vincent Xeus
XVI
Flash 18, painting by Vincent Xeus
XVIII
Chains, painting by Vincent Xeus
XVII
Storm, James Storm, painting by Vincent Xeus
XX
MC2, painting by Vincent Xeus
XIX
Yangeling, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXI
Harvest, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXIX
Bare Spectrum, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXII
Bacon, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXIII
Diana Portrait, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXIV
Rooster, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXV
Billboard on Peoples Blvd, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXVI
Mountain, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXVII
Jean, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXIX
Blanched Identity, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXVIII
O, painting by Vincent Xeus
XXX

At some point the painting stops listening.

The figure is there, but not entirely.

It changes depending on how long you stay.

I didn't set out to find this.

The space does most of the speaking.

I couldn't track where it came from.

It kept showing up, so I left it.

蘇川 · Vincent Xeus

Budweiser Art
Experiential Center

Location
Shenzhen, CN
Completion
2020
Role
Chief Artistic & Design Director
A Collaboration With
Anheuser-Busch InBev

Vincent Xeus, as the visionary behind Budweiser's first global art experiential club, redefines the brand's identity by merging artistic expression with architectural innovation. Xeus transcends traditional branding approaches, utilizing immersive art experiences to forge deeper connections with audiences and elevate Budweiser's cultural presence. By curating an environment where art and architecture seamlessly converge, Xeus creates an immersive journey that captivates visitors, leaving a lasting impression of Budweiser's commitment to creativity and innovation.

Plate i. The Study 01 / 04
Vincent Xeus — preparatory sketch for the Budweiser Art Experiential Center, white line on Budweiser red
Plate ii. The Element 02 / 04
Pulse dining room — red light, Marilyn portraits, neon Pulse signage
Element — architectural detail, Budweiser Art Experiential Center
Plate iii. The Pulse 03 / 04
Pulse mezzanine — red banquette under faceted lit ceiling, view to lower level
Entry hall with backlit checkered wall and Budweiser sign
Plate iv. Editions 04 / 04
Porcelain plate edition — array view on pink ground
Boxed porcelain edition with presentation case
蘇川 · Vincent Xeus
Contemporary artist Vincent Xeus in his studio with Kennedy Women paintings, New York
Studio · New York

Vincent Xeus

蘇川

Abstraction reveals force.
The figure holds resistance.

Vincent Xeus is a contemporary artist working across painting, architecture, and large-scale immersive installation. Coming of age during the arc of globalization, Xeus experienced how identity forms within shifting, impersonal structures. That experience underlies the work's emphasis on endurance over assertion.

Trained in architecture at UC Berkeley, he approaches painting through the logic of the built environment: scale as force, space as pressure, the canvas as a structure the figure must negotiate. Power, in his work, is not enacted by the figure but embedded in the environment.

His paintings render monumental figures within densely layered fields of color that carry the weight of architectural spaces: walls of pigment that press, enclose, and occasionally yield. Gesture is minimal; posture is deliberate.

The work draws on a lineage from the spatial compression of Francis Bacon to the gestural force of Willem de Kooning, while remaining grounded in a classical attention to the figure inherited from the Old Masters. The abstraction makes the force visible. The figure makes the resistance tangible.

Xeus's practice unfolds through distinct bodies of work that function as variations on a consistent inquiry. While subject matter shifts, the relationship between individual presence and inherited structure remains constant. His work has been exhibited and is held in private and institutional collections internationally; the practice extends into large-scale immersive projects across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including the Budweiser Art Experiential Center, where he served as Chief Artistic and Design Director.

Xeus has spoken at the Harvard College China Forum and served as Arts Commissioner in Napa Valley. He received his BA with High Honors from UC Berkeley and a master's degree from Columbia University, where he was awarded the Columbia Fellow Award. He lives and works in New York and Napa Valley.

蘇川 · Vincent Xeus © 2026

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