Yirui Jia

Yirui Jia (b. 1997) moved to the United Stated from China in 2015, where she subsequently received her BFA from Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Within Jia’s work resides a cast of characters—many of whom are derived from popular culture and cartoon influences to anthropomorphic objects and animals. Each character has its own complex identity within the childlike worlds in which they are portrayed, empowered by the reinvention of the ordinary. Jia embraces the idea of her paintings serving as visualized narratives to the sculptures and vice-versa. The first of her family to become an artist, Jia is inspired by daily life—the personal and shared experiences, “the undifferentiated universality of objects,” and, perhaps most importantly, the humor of it all.

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Yirui Jia in her studio in New York, US, 2022. Photo by Garrett Carroll.