Jenie Gao
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jeniegao.bsky.social
Jenie Gao
@jeniegao.bsky.social
1.3K followers 670 following 580 posts
(they/she) Artist-small business owner. Consultant on equity + ethics. Executive Director at Centre A. Anti-gentrification. Pro-fair pay + labour rights. Salty. 🍉🕊️

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jeniegao.bsky.social
My recent solo show, The Integrity of a Story, at Alberta Printmakers Society.

Much of this new work I made during my art residency at Women's Studio Workshop. 💗

Thank you to the A/P team and Calgary community for being gracious hosts. 💚

#printmaker #woodcut #contemporaryart #printsky 💜🖼️ 🐡
November 17, 2025 at 4:57 AM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Current reading: Against the Loveless World, by Palestinian American author and activist Susan Abulhawa. 💙📚 #palestinianwriters #decolonizeyourbookshelf
Front cover of the novel, Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa. It's a hardcover book with jewel toned blues, pinks, violets, and peaches in an abstract geometric design overlaid on a starry night sky. The text is gold and white.
October 6, 2025 at 5:24 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
One of my famous installation guides. I do my best to be kind to the curators and installation teams that handle my work.

For my upcoming solo show, The Integrity of a Story, at Alberta Printmakers, opening Sept 26 in Calgary, AB.

#contemporaryprintmaking #printmakers #printsky #installationart
Photo of a word processing document that contains step-by-step instructions for installing a work of art, plus a sketch of the artwork. The art installation in the sketch consists of a custom-built TV tray table, two chairs, and a framed wall piece. There are dramatic shadows cast onto the floor in the drawing.
September 16, 2025 at 10:21 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Wall color for my upcoming solo show. #contemporaryprintmaking
September 15, 2025 at 5:38 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
My other kitty, Marigold, and yet another graphic novel about cats.

Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto.

#graphicnovel #comics #cats 💙📚
Photo of a long-haired black cat lying on a table next to a hardcover book entitled Cats of the Louvre. The cover features an illustration of a white cat on a Queen Anne style chair against a red gallery wall with two framed paintings, and several small illustrated cats around the title.
August 8, 2025 at 5:19 AM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Decided to scare myself by reading Octavia Butler's prescient novel, Parable of the Sower.

Written in 1993. Set in 2024-2027. The book follows a disabled Black youth who devises survival strategies amidst high unemployment, addiction, militarized states, privatized cities, and religious zealots.🪐📚💙
Front cover of Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler. The title is in red serif letters at the top, the author's name in large capital sans serif typeface at the bottom. The cover is simple with a white background and an illustration of a Black woman's silhouetted profile wearing a red dress and head wrap with a few leaf like shapes around her.
August 4, 2025 at 6:55 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Lil #watercolor sketch of Cypress Mountain viewpoint of Gambier and Bowen Islands.

This hike is located in West Vancouver, BC, on the lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

#enpleinair #mstland #pacificnorthwest #vancouverbc
Viewpoint overlooking blue mountains, islands, and blue ocean waters, and artist Jenie Gao's legs and hand holding a long horizontal sketchbook containing a watercolor painting of the scenery. Cypress Mountain viewpoint of Gambier and Bowen Islands. This hike is located in West Vancouver, on the lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
July 28, 2025 at 8:05 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
A stranger took a candid photo of me making a #watercolor #painting from a viewpoint at Cypress Mountain.

💜🖼️🐡 #sketchbook #enpleinair #mountains
Photo of the artist, Jenie Gao, sitting on a rocky ledge overlooking a mountain and ocean view. Jenie has black hair and olive skin, is holding a sketchbook, and is wearing a green tank top, bucket hat, and shorts.
July 28, 2025 at 8:05 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
My cat, Mintaka, plus literature.

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu.

💙📚 #catlovers #blackcats #booksky #graphicnovels #comics 🐈‍⬛
Photo of my hand—with an orange long sleeve—booping my cat, Mintaka, on the nose. Mintaka is a fluffy longhaired black cat with gold eyes. On the table adjacent to Mintaka is the book, Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu. The cover is black, white, and yellow and consists of a line art portrait of Junji Ito at the bottom, his wife at the top, and their two cats, a white cat with a black cap on the left and a fluffy tabby on the right.
July 28, 2025 at 7:40 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
I was fortunate to have my work in Go West, a group exhibition showcasing Asian American artists in Boulder, CO this year.

Thank you to Dairy Arts Center, curator Stella Witcher, and jurors Rajiv Menon + Roseline Nevling for including me in this showcase.

#contemporaryart #printmaking #woodcut
Photo of a white cube contemporary art gallery called Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO. Jenie Gao’s artworks are on the far wall: two woodblock print diptychs in blue (left artwork) and green/red (right artwork), and also on a plinth in the center of the room, an artist’s book designed to resemble a Chinese takeout menu. There are a few other artworks in this shot, including a green chain link fence installation, a 2D photograph, and a sculpture of hands holding pingpong paddles. Photo by Wes Magyar. Photo of a white cube contemporary art gallery called Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO. Jenie Gao’s artworks are on the far wall: two woodblock print diptychs in blue (left artwork) and green/red (right artwork), and also on a plinth in the center of the room, an artist’s book designed to resemble a Chinese takeout menu. There are a few other artworks in this shot, including a green chain link fence installation, a 2D photograph, and a sculpture of hands holding pingpong paddles. There is a grayscale 2D artwork of a landscape in the foreground of this photo. Photo by Wes Magyar. Photo of a white cube contemporary art gallery called Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO. This is a close-up of Jenie Gao’s woodblock diptychs. On left: My Migration Route | Iris Roots Clean the Water, two long pale blue woodblock prints on canvas of a map of the Great Lakes overlaid with an iris flower. On right: Cycle | Breaking and Making: Pigeon and Fènghuáng, two woodblock prints on canvas hung like scrolls, of a pigeon (left) and fènghuáng / Chinese phoenix (right), in an elliptical chase designed to look like large green/red jade pendants. Photo by Wes Magyar. Photo of a white cube contemporary art gallery called Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO. Jenie Gao’s artworks are on the far wall: two woodblock print diptychs in blue (left artwork) and green/red (right artwork), and also on a plinth in the center of the room, an artist’s book designed to resemble a Chinese takeout menu. There are a few other artworks in this shot, including a green chain link fence installation, a 2D photograph, and a sculpture of hands holding pingpong paddles. There are grayscale 2D artworks of landscapes in the foreground of this photo. Photo by Wes Magyar.
July 15, 2025 at 2:46 AM
jeniegao.bsky.social
We'll Prescribe You a Cat: A Novel.

Chill read at an easygoing, slightly off beat pace with very mild twists as the plot reveals itself. Almost as if an aloof cat wrote it lol.

It won't make my favorites list but I finished it quickly and enjoyed it!

💙📚 #cats #catlovers
Front cover of We'll Prescribe You a Cat: A Novel, by Syou Ishida, translated by E. Madison Shimoda. The cover is light blue with an illustration of a grey and white tabby cat perched inside of an orange medical prescription container. The title text is in a black serif typeface.
June 30, 2025 at 2:49 AM
jeniegao.bsky.social
The Deer Garden, #woodcut completed during my Women’s Studio Workshop residency.

The woodblock will be embedded in a custom-built TV tray table to resemble inlaid jade, in an exploration of what it means to steward my mother’s stories and home.

#printsky #contemporaryprint #asianamericanartists 🐡
Woodcut printed in a fountain roll of light to dark jade green, designed to resemble hand-carved jade. The imagery features a Clouded Leopard and Formosan Sika Deer in a cyclical chase against a wood-like pattern. - The Deer Garden contends with the changing landscape surrounding my mother’s home in rural Kansas, as suburbanization encroaches. Since 2024, my spouse and I have taken turns visiting my mother to help her with house repairs and to assert our presence to overly inquisitive real estate developers and new neighbors. In my mother’s home, we have meals sitting across from each other at a TV tray table in her kitchen. In this modest, intimate setting, my mother steps into one of her most profound roles as our family’s knowledge keeper. Her stories—historical, allegorical, almost mythic, and sometimes prophetic—come alive. The Deer Garden features a Formosan Sika Deer and Clouded Leopard in a continuous, cyclical chase. As I pester my mother on specifics, I find myself negotiating what it means to be a good historian, researcher, and steward. The “mountain lions” outside her childhood bedroom in Taiwan turn out to be feral cats. The deer outside her windows in Kansas become stand-ins for celestial gods. My prints reflect this cyclical tension, as I set up strict matrices for works that are inherently about the immeasurable qualities of stories that can never—perhaps should never—be rendered quite perfectly. The final woodcut is designed to resemble a piece of hand-carved jade, which will be inlaid on the surface of a TV tray table. Shout-out to Woody at WSW for taking my sketches and crafting such a gorgeous table to hold this work. 💚 The inimitable Woody, staff member at Women’s Studio Workshop, who brought my design drawings by building this custom TV tray table to hold my woodblock for The Deer Garden. Here Woody is sanding down the table for final test fitting to inlay the woodblock on the tabletop.
June 26, 2025 at 10:23 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
New York book haul.

Book author details and the bookstores I visited in alt text.

💡📚💙

#writersofcolor #palestinianauthors #feministwriting #readdiversebooks
Front covers of books. Left column: -Responses to "Forbidden Colors" (1988) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, bought at Dia Beacon, 100% proceeds to medical aid in Palestine -Gardens Speak by Tania El Khoury, bought at Printed Matter -a French bilingual copy of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech with a preface by Amanda Gorman, bought at Albertine Books Right column: -In Dark Times by Rehab Nazzal, bought at Printed Matter -After Institutions by Karen Archey, bought at Printed Matter -We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang, bought at Mercer Street Books Front cover (in hot pink with light pink text) of exhibition catalog, A Radical Alteration: Women's Studio Workshop As A Sustainable Model for Art Making A gift from WSW archivist Faythe Levine
June 25, 2025 at 12:04 AM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Just finished The Emperor of Gladness.

Ocean Vuong has really nailed the art of writing melancholy + queer + small town coming-of-age stories focused on Vietnamese American protagonists in yet another heart wrencher.

💙📚
Front cover of The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. The book features a silhouetted portrait in profile against a hazy orange and black background with yellow-gold title text in all caps.
June 22, 2025 at 6:20 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Hands at work. Images of my newest #woodcut and #artistsbook in progress at my Women’s Studio Workshop residency. It feels amazing to be on the Vandercook again.

Photo credit Natalie Thomas.

#letterpress #photopolymer #reliefprint #contemporaryprintmaking #bookarts #aapiart 💜🖼️🐡
Artist Jenie Gao printing a photopolymer plate on the Vandercook letterpress at Women’s Studio Workshop. Jenie has short black hair with a side shave and is wearing a teal tank top with a lime green apron. Close-up of Jeni’s hands carving a woodcut. The woodcut imagery is of a Formosan Sika Deer and Clouded Leopard in a cyclical prance / chase, with a branch-like pattern in the background. Close-up of Jenie’s hands stacking an edition of prints from the letterpress. The imagery is in teal ink and of a wood grain-like pattern. Close-up of Jenie’s hands folding prototypes of a new artists’ book shaped like a circle.
June 6, 2025 at 2:23 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Clouded Leopard #woodcut close-up. Almost ready to print!

#printsky #contemporaryprint 💜🖼️
Closeup of a hand carved woodcut of a leaping clouded leopard with an open mouth and fangs showing, by artist Jenie Gao.
June 1, 2025 at 4:48 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Formosan Sika Deer keep their spots long after they grow into adulthood.

They are indigenous to Taiwan, and I've included them in my newest #woodcut and #printmaking projects as a part of familial storytelling.

#printpromptmonday #growth #taiwaneseamericanartist 💜🖼️
Closeup of Jenie Gao's latest woodcut in progress and a carving tool. The artwork features a Formosan Sika Deer and Clouded Leopard leaping in a cyclical chase.
May 29, 2025 at 4:03 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
About halfway thru my 6-week residency at Women's Studio Workshop in Kingston, NY.

It's so lovely here and I'm cherishing the focused studio time. Excited to share new works soon. For now, here's a sneak peek of a couple things in development.

#printmaker #contemporaryprint #woodcut #hudsonvalley
Photo of the artist, Jenie Gao, working on an ink drawing on paper of wood grain. Jenie has short black hair with a side shave and is wearing a plaid button down over a black shirt. They are sitting in a sunlit intaglio print studio. Woodcut in progress. The imagery features a Formosan sika deer and clouded leopard running in an elliptical shape against an abstracted, branch-like background.
May 28, 2025 at 1:34 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
#printpromptmonday #process

Photo of me pulling one of my large-scale woodcuts off the press.

Work title: Pigeon, half of a diptych with Fènghuáng. The works resemble hand-carved jade pendants.

#printsky #contemporaryprint #woodcut #reliefprint 💜🖼️
Artist Jenie Gao in the print shop, pulling a large scale woodblock print (in jade green and red) on the press. The image is of a homing pigeon and resembles carved jade. The print is roughly 4x3 feet and on muslin canvas. Jenie is of Taiwanese and Chinese descent and has short black hair with a side fade, and is wearing an inky lab coat.
May 13, 2025 at 12:49 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Delighted to be in the exhibition "Go West" at Dairy Arts Center showcasing #AsianAmericanArtists whose creative stories reflect the intersection of cultural heritage, innovation, and the pursuit of new beginnings in the American West.

Learn more thedairy.org/go-west-exhi...

#boulderco #printmaker
Promotional poster for the group exhibition for Go West, featuring 12 Asian American artists, opening May 16. The poster's show title text is in large block letters that show portions of different artists' work against a deep violet background. Artists: Agnes Ma, Bala Thiagarajan, Christine Nguyen, Erin Hyunhee Kang, Jenie Gao, Joon Tajadod, Laila Vaziralli, Margaret Kasahara, Maki Teshima, Mattie Hanson, Sammy Seung-min Lee, Taiko Chandler Guest Jurors: Gallerist, Rajiv Menon, and Art Advisor, Roseline Michael Neveling
May 9, 2025 at 2:46 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
I've arrived at Women's Studio Workshop for an art residency. 🙂

#kingstonny #hudsonvalley #artresidency #printmakers #printsky #artistsbooks
Outside view of two of the buildings on the Women's Studio Workshop campus, an arts non-profit in the Hudson Valley of New York that hosts art residencies and workshops for the local community.
May 7, 2025 at 3:19 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Woman with Roots, #silkscreen on paper.

From my print series on relationships and reciprocity.

#printpromptmonday #portrait #serigraphy #screenprint #contemporaryprint #printsky #blackandwhite
The tree-headed person is a long-standing figure that has reappeared in my artwork for many years, contending with the personal and the political. In this black-and-white screen print, a woman with a tree for a head is sitting in a chair. As branches grow outward from her face, roots sprawl downward from her seat, spelling the word “here” underneath. She looks up at a homing pigeon that is about to land on her branches, and offers a hand.
May 1, 2025 at 3:47 AM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Life is busy and stressful but the reading is good.

Sat in the community garden on this gorgeous spring day while reading Ninetails: Nine Tales by Sally Wen Mao.

Thrilling, magical, contemporary short stories about fox spirits.

💙📚🪐 #fantasyfiction #magicrealism
Front cover of Ninetails: Nine Tales by Sally Wen Mao, a collection of short stories based on mythologies about fox spirits. The cover illustration is of an upside down red fox with nine tails, surrounded by flowers, peaches, and bird wings against a dark blue background.
April 26, 2025 at 11:03 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
“The Golden Cage” is an #artistsbook about a homing pigeon who leaves behind what he knows in search of greater purpose. He becomes a messenger in the human world—delivering empty messages for heads divided from the people they fail to lead.

#woodcut #contemporaryprint 🐡💜🖼️
#printpromptmonday #earth
Page spread from my artists’ book, “The Golden Cage,” an accordion book made up of a sequence of two-layer woodblocks printed in charcoal grey and gold ink. The story follows a homing pigeon, who leaves behind what he knows in search of greater purpose, and is told that if he works hard he will eventually achieve great renown. He works different jobs, delivering packages that no one needs to people with no heads, until he eventually becomes a messenger delivering messages of no value on behalf of the heads divided from the people they fail to lead. This page spread features the homing pigeon’s ascension to life in a golden cage, and his first meeting with one of the heads. The homing pigeon’s own head changes over the course of the story, from a compass to a small earth-like planet.
April 25, 2025 at 4:54 PM
jeniegao.bsky.social
Very much enjoying New Suns, a collection of #speculativefiction short stories by BIPOC authors.

Edited by Nisi Shawl.
Introduction by Levar Burton.
Including Stories by Indrapramit Das, E Lily Yu, Rebecca Roanhorse, Anil Melon, Jaymee Goh, and many others.

💙📚🪐🐡 #scifi #writersofcolor
Front cover of New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color. Cover is an illustration of the back of a person's head. They are wearing an ornate headdress, earrings, and have dark wavy hair and brown skin. Edited by Nisi Shawl. Introduction by Levar Burton. Including Stories by Indrapramit Das, E Lily Yu, Rebecca Roanhorse, Anil Melon, Jaymee Goh, and many others.
April 22, 2025 at 6:26 PM