ABOUT

Born and raised in China, Jinya Zhao received her BA in 2017 from the China Academy of Art and her MA and MRes from the Royal College of Art in 2019 and 2021. Jinya was invited as Artist-in-Residence at Southern Illinois University in the USA (2019), Taoxichuan Glass Studio in Jingdezhen, China (2022), and Pilchuck Glass School in the USA (2023). She is currently pursuing her PhD at the Royal College of Art, London.

Jinya sees glass as an ideal medium to explore the themes of environment, emotions, and personal experiences. Her work is collected by museums and galleries expanding from but not limited to Prague Gallery of Czech Glass, Qingdao Art Museum, Southern Illinois University, Ulster Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum; her work has gained international recognition, including the solo exhibition at the Liuli China Museum in Shanghai, China, and a group show at Hauser & Wirth London in 2023.

In her current practice and research, Jinya asks how the material phenomena unique to blown glass can make multi-sensory connections between the artist and audience, and how can we use aspects like colour, shape, form, as well as techniques of obscuring and revealing to connect memory and imagination in her work. She proposes the concept of the “synesthetic touch”. By enhancing the visual experience of blown glass sculpture, she aims to enable audiences to experience an enhanced relationship between vision and touch, to reconnect and re-invoke multisensory perceptions.

Explore the realms of colour, spatial layering, and the sublime, all with the intent of eliciting memory and imagination through a synesthetic medium. This methodology extends beyond the purely visual, aiming to establish connections with the ethereal and the unreachable.