On April 10, the Carrousel du Louvre opened its doors to the 37th edition of Art Shopping Paris, one of the French capital’s longest-running international contemporary art salons. Among the more than 150 artists and galleries from over 50 countries was a 60-by-60-centimeter digital print titled Joy — a work whose origins lie not in a painter’s studio, but in academic research into how human beings experience emotion.
The print belongs to a series called Emotional Frequencies, created by Xiaoyun Chen, a designer and researcher based in Silicon Valley whose practice moves between user experience design and contemporary art.
When research becomes image
The “Emotional Frequencies” series originated from Chen’s early design project “Moodi”, a system combining a physical toy and a digital application to help children aged three to six identify and regulate their own emotions, grounded in the Profile of Mood States, a clinical psychology instrument for measuring emotional experience. Chen extended this experimental research into art, transforming emotions from abstract concepts into perceptible, experiential visual spaces.
This exploration eventually developed into the Emotional Frequencies series. The works do not aim to provide standard answers to emotions; rather, they translate four core emotional states — Anger, Joy, Sadness, and Fear — into four distinct yet interconnected visual worlds. They resemble four radically different climate systems, mapping the flow of emotion through color, space, and rhythm.
In Anger — Burst, red fragments erupt outward from the center of the canvas, creating strong tension through radiating structures and continuously expanding organic forms. Anger is presented as an energy release that can no longer be compressed — not destructive, but a momentary weightlessness at the threshold of emotional intensity. The viewer’s gaze follows the fragments outward, as if positioned at the heart of an emotional explosion.
As this force gradually dissipates, Joy — Expansion carries the composition into a completely different frequency. Lemon yellow fills the entire space, with flowers, fruits, and soft organic forms floating freely, boundaries extending outward continuously. Joy here is not ecstatic excitement, but a natural vitality — light, open, and effortlessly occupying the space.
Next, colors gradually sink into deep blues. Sadness — Drift creates a slow, downward rhythm with a night-like backdrop and vertically descending lines. Water lilies and daisies float on a still surface, stretching the perception of time. Sadness is no longer understood as collapse or loss of control, but as a gentle, solemn pause — a prolonged, introspective ritual.
When the viewer enters Fear — Enclosure, the spatial dynamics begin to change. Layered vegetation spreads from the periphery toward the center, with vines, leaves, and branches intertwining, gradually compressing the previously open visual space. Fear does not arise from a specific object, but from the process of the environment itself closing in.
From eruption to expansion, from drifting to enclosure, the four works collectively form a map of emotional flow. They continue the Moodi project’s exploration of emotion recognition and expression while posing a broader question: when language fails, can images serve as an alternative means to understand emotion?
This exploration has also found resonance in international exhibition contexts. Joy — Expansion was presented at Art Shopping Paris, while Fear — Enclosure appeared the same month at The Coningsby Gallery in London in the group exhibition Echoes, Residue, Traces, receiving coverage by Vogue China. Through the spatial narratives of openness and enclosure, expansion and contraction, the works validate the cross-cultural emotional resonance of Emotional Frequencies — suggesting that when language reaches its limits, images may become another way to comprehend emotion.
A juried platform for international contemporary art
Art Shopping Paris was founded in 2007 by curator Myriam Annonay Castanet and has been held twice annually at the Carrousel du Louvre ever since. The 37th edition drew more than 20,000 visitors and collectors over three days, with artists and galleries representing more than 50 countries. Since its founding, the salon has featured more than 10,000 artists in total.
Chen’s participation came through a jury review process. The 21 artists presented at the Xinsilu stand were selected following curatorial evaluation — distinguishing their inclusion from open booth submissions.
“Being chosen through a jury process meant a great deal to me,” Chen said. “It signaled that the work could stand on its own in an international context.”
Her work was listed among participating artists in reports published by artdaily.com, a US-based art publication founded in 1996, and Our Culture Mag, a UK arts and culture publication with more than 100,000 social media followers.
Design thinking in a contemporary art context
In her professional practice, Chen leads the user experience for the Roku Developer Portal at Roku, Inc., a platform serving streaming application developers globally. Her design philosophy, which she calls Empathetic Architecture, centers on the idea that the underlying structure of a system can itself reflect and respond to human emotional experience.
That philosophy runs through both her technology work and her art. Both are attempts to make interior emotional states visible and communicable — whether through an interface used by developers or a print on a gallery wall.
“In product design, empathy tends to be discussed as a method,” she said. “What I keep returning to is whether it can be a structure — whether you can build empathy into the architecture of something, rather than apply it as a layer on top.”
Over the years, Chen’s work has received recognition from institutions including the MUSE Design Awards, the International Design Awards, and the European Product Design Award. Yet her practice has remained less concerned with outcomes than with inquiry — an ongoing exploration of how design can make invisible experiences visible, and how systems, whether technological or visual, can become more responsive to human emotion.
That sensibility has gradually expanded her role beyond that of a designer alone. In 2026, she was invited to join the jury of the Indigo Design Award, participating in conversations that continue to shape the evolving relationship between design, technology, and human experience.
Paris and London, the same month
The simultaneous appearances in Paris and London in April 2026 — Joy — Expansion at the Carrousel du Louvre and Fear — Enclosure at The Coningsby Gallery — mark a significant moment in the international reach of the Emotional Frequencies series.
“I think about these exhibitions as introductions,” Chen said. “You put the work in a room with people you have never met, and it either reaches them or it does not. The question the series asks has not changed since the research began. The room is just larger now.”
The 37th Art Shopping Paris ran from April 10 to 12, 2026 at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris. The salon’s next edition is scheduled for October 2026.