Thanks for everyone, I did it

Shafei Xia's work draws on traditional Japanese and Chinese erotic art while infusing it with a modern, playful sensibility. Her work explores love as desire, jealously, and violence, expressed both symbolically and explicitly. Frequently depicting herself as or with a tiger—an emblem of power and primal energy in Chinese alchemy—Shafei Xia invites a dynamic interplay of roles between men, women and animals, blurring boundaries and challenging expectations.

Her paintings frequently contain vivid, surprising details. In this portrait, we see feminine tropes traditionally found in portraiture, the flowers and partial nudity, subverted by the phallic candlestick and the tiger. These juxtapositions in Shafei Xia's work create a tension between tenderness and threat, desire and risk. However, though speaking of sexual desire, the artist maintains a delicacy in the treatment of her subjects.