Emily Xie is a visual artist and ex-software engineer. Her rich digital compositions combine her sharp creative eye and passion for art history with her deep knowledge of computer science. What's so striking about her work is just how textural it is. She brings together many different patterns and surfaces inspired by tangible forms of media like textiles, collage and embroidery. "When you're using code to mimic something that's deeply material and deeply textural, I think that's pretty fascinating," she says. And the results are transfixing. Her artworks perfectly balance opposing forces – randomness and control, structure and fluidity, abstraction and representation.