Jiaming You

Both works incorporate print media and painting. With the overlapping of mediums, You aims to create an interaction between a photographic portrait of the current social-political “exterior” and a painterly depiction of a psychological response to that exterior. Both works were made in mid to late 2021, when the artist attempted to digest the impact brought to them by a series of intense incidents that happened during 2020 and 2021 in both the civil right and public health domains.

— Jiaming You

Jiaming You is a painter who lives and works in Chicago. They graduated from their MFA degree in Painting and Drawing at SAIC in May 2022. They received their BS in Art at UW, Madison with a double major in Psychology and Art (2018) and a Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Painting and Drawing at SAIC (2019). Jiaming is the receiver of the SAIC International Graduate Student Scholarship, and the Oxbow Merit Scholarship. Jiaming’s work depicts the juxtaposition of physical and mental spaces. Various social and psychological topics in contemporary life are discussed in their work: isolation, disjunction between selfhood and social structure, sexuality and power hierarchy, and various intense mental conditions. Their work has been shown in Wisconsin, Chicago, Michigan, and New York. Outside their studio practices, Jiaming also works as a Graduate Curatorial Assistant at the Department of Exhibition, SAIC since 2020.