While most of us tend to live and work in what can feel like a boxed-up prison of measured time, the image of the artist's existence has often glowed in an aura of elusive cool. Maybe it's the romantic image of a free-spirited Bohemian lifestyle portrayed in novels, films and glossy magazines, or that artists, as inherently creative people, simply possess a bit more panache than you and me. Whichever the case, there's something alluring to us mere mortals about an artist's studio workspace. From tiny back rooms to open warehouse lofts; from colorful clutter to obsessive order, there's just something unique about a space whose purpose is creation.

As an accomplished artist, painter Niu An may have a leg up on the rest of us in terms of creating a highly functional space. After all, hers is a career that began in the aesthetically driven environs of interior design. After bouncing back and forth between Shanghai and America over the last two 
years while focusing on her painting, the Shanghai native has built a resplendent, yet uniquely understated, urban studio in the city's Luwan District. Just a brushstroke off of busy Huaihai Road, Niu's just completed live-in work space at a glance speaks of her imaginative nature, but in the 
minute details focuses on her serious workman-like approach to craft. Hers is an environment whose core is all about function, but still posses a sublime aesthetic appearance and truly comfortable air of livability.

Niu's concept of how to convert this 181.8m2, three bedroom, typical Shanghai style apartment into a highly functional live-in work space was born on a bar napkin over drinks with architect friend Benjamin Wood, one of the principle designers of Xintiandi. The key was to fashion an open space that was conducive to Niu's working style of absolute focus and order, eliminating any tendency for clutter, which is the bane of small living or workspaces. To do so, Niu, with the help of Wood and local architect, Julian Xu (the man behind the aesthetics of trendy late night Maoming Lu hangout, Buddha Bar, and its predecessor, the wonderfully industrial dkd) would pursue an avenue of design that would be absent of any free-standing furniture, opting instead to build bare needs such as a bed, desk and ample storage, right into the existing space. The result of this vision is a creative, enviable space, where form truly follows function.

Upon entering the 14th floor studio, there's strong sense of openness,though not altogether obvious, as a stream of natural light pours in from the far end of the main area opposite the entrance. At once you're in a sense moved into the space's main working area by a unique arcing wall that separates living space from workspace, but on either end allows for free movement back and forth between the work and sleeping areas.

Niu's main workspace is a beacon to function, anchored by a 3x1.10m desk/work surface made from concrete. Fixed to the north wall, the desk plays the role of the 'home' within the home. It's a place of contemplation 
in creative vision and business matters alike, as well as offering a surprising amount of storage in its deep lower drawers that generously glide out in opposite directions. What's more, the desk's anchoring wall is actually set off from the studio's larger outer wall, creating added hiddenstorage.

The south end of Niu's workspace offers a small, elevated landing and sitting bench that runs over from the main space into the adjoining sleeping area. Uninterrupted windows offer a great urban view. What's unique about this sitting area is that its floors are heated to combat Shanghai's bitingly chilly winter months, a concept Niu drew on from her experience living in Japan.

Between the main room's desk area and sitting area is, of course, the artists focused work space, open and unremarkable, as it should be, with ample room to move about on the pale hardwood floor and attend to what this space is all about,Niu's work on canvass. The walls are pure white, clean and uninterrupted allowing the artist to hang more than one work in progress at a time.

The studio's sleeping area,occupying the southeast quarter of the space,adjoined with the sitting area, proves equally as functional as the main workspace. Niu's built-in elevated bed, with its partially inlayed mattress and extended surface border presents itself as a high-ground sleeping island with one side playing host to hidden storage compartments, the other to an open space clothing rack, whose backside drops down in what amounts to an equally open air closet. The black concrete floor surface and the flat orange walls, cut by the pale wood bed, deliver an attractive color combination, in unique contrast to the main area.

Extending from the sleeping area is a somewhat dark hall creating a distinct separation between this and the kitchen. The darkness is broken by the glow of a smoked glass door leading into the bathroom. The studio's bathroom offers yet another distinctively different feel within the full space. It's a cool, modern bathroom, mixing strong lines of glass, wood and concrete.We're met at the end of the dark hall by the kitchen area, which is alsowhere we enter the apartment. However, upon entering, the pull into the main room is so strong, it's simply easy to bypass and barely glance at the kitchen, which in and of itself, however humble, is perfect
in size and proportion to the rest of the studio-and completely capable of a deliciously prepared meal. In the end though, however fine the bathroom and kitchen are, they are clearly secondary necessities to the main work and sleeping areas, which speak of the artist's clear devotion to her craft.

For Niu, the calling here in living and working, above everything else,is to create. And where her paintings posses a sense of running poetics drenched in a kind of sensual freneticism, her live-in studio is a place
of absolute controlled order, dedicated to a singular focus, without sacrificing life's essential elements of comfort. With brush and canvass as the instruments of work, the space is worthy of Warholian admiration. 'It's work, the seminal lyricist Lou Reed sings of Warhol's determined creative drive. 'The only thing that matters is work.'