A window is seen by everyone who walks past, including people who would never step into a gallery. This page describes the studio’s window projects so far — a thirteen-month display in a downtown Worcester building and a painted storefront in Boston’s Chinatown — and how a window has been planned and installed.
Xiang Li 李湘 spent thirty-seven years in the Forbidden City’s painting studio. Her empresses and pandas reward a close look, and their strong color and clear figures also work at the distance of a sidewalk.
Her daughter, Fei Wu, produces every window — the walk-through with the building, the choice of paintings, the layout and the install — and speaks for the studio at any opening, translating for her mother.
Two collections have carried a window so far.
One ran for thirteen months behind glass; one was painted on the glass itself.
Photograph © 2025 Mel Taing
For Experience Chinatown 2025, Pao Arts Center commissioned eight murals on the theme “Imagine a Greener Future for Chinatown”. Ours was painted straight onto the glass at 693 Washington Street — pandas and color facing the sidewalk for seven weeks.
August 30 – October 17, 2025
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In a window program run with the City of Worcester, alongside nine other local artists showing art and fashion, Xiang Li’s Chinese Empresses canvases filled one of the Denholm Building’s windows for thirteen months — “dozens of empresses greet the city each day”. The installation was planned after a walk-through of the building with the program managers.
October 2024 – November 2025
Each one starts with a walk-through of the space.
Canvas prints behind glass for months at a time — as at the Denholm Building — safe from handling and visible day and night.
A mural painted directly on a storefront’s windows, as at Happy Lamb Hot Pot, for a festival or a season.
A display built for one season or holiday and changed when it ends, with the paintings chosen for the moment.
A walk-through of the space with the owner or program manager comes first, as at the Denholm Building. Fei Wu then chooses the paintings, plans the layout and installs the window.
For window dimensions, lighting, install and take-down, timing or images, write to the studio. Fei Wu produces and presents the studio’s programs and will answer.
Contact the studio Fei Wu · Producer and speaker · Xiang Li’s daughter
xiangliart@gmail.com
