In 2019, Xinyi Cheng won Art Basel’s Baloise Art Prize for her portraits of modern love. “My paintings are about different aspects of desire and human relationships,” she says. “I paint situations that are based on my memories or imagination.” Her richly colored paintings often depict homosexual eroticism. Against single-color backgrounds, Cheng builds understated scenes of people doing simple things: lighting a cigarette, watching an owl, falling naked, crying. The Paris-based, Chinese-born Cheng now has her first show in the United States. Sixteen new paintings lure viewers into mysterious snapshots of real life and its oddities. —Clara Molot