Roots of Potatoes, 2025, laser cut MDF plate, acrylic paint, canvas, bamboo rod, shadow, 40 x 80 cm (MDF plate), 240 x 120 cm (Canvas)

My practice moves between painting, installation, and research-based projects that explore how we shape and are shaped by the environment and societies we inhabit. Having lived and worked across different cultural contexts, I am intrigued to ask how we leave traces on landscapes, communities, and each other, and how these traces come to define who we are and where we belong.

I use mixed media, choosing materials intuitively to align with each project’s concept, whether wood, textiles, found objects, or paints. My background in product design trained me to think through making: prototyping, testing, and responding to physical properties. This openness allows me to experiment and answer honestly to each theme.

Many of my works connect ecological systems with social narratives. I have created urban habitats for pollinators, mapped the migration routes of vegetables as reflections on human mobility, and collaborated with people experiencing homelessness to bring forward stories that often remain overlooked.

Through these projects, I explore how relationships between humans, non-human life, and place might be reconsidered and reimagined

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www.jingwenyao.art