江演媚 JIANG, Yanmei → BIO+CV

BIO+CV

11 5月 2023

Statement

I am a Chinese-born visual artist based in New York, currently working across painting, installation, and performance. My practice is driven by a sustained inquiry into identity, perception, and the tension between internal spirit and external world.

My early, formative work is a photography series titled Me and Me, which examines self-construction within intimate relationships in China. By using the body as both subject and site, the work deliberately destabilizes conventional boundaries between masculinity and femininity. This project emerged from a personal urgency to confront internal conflict and to question inherited social roles rather than accept them passively.

My current and primary focus is painting. Through painting, I commit to investigating energy as a visual and emotional force, how it moves, accumulates, and transforms through color, rhythm, and gesture. Influenced by sound, tempo, and the spirit of Chinese calligraphy, I approach painting as a one-time go, embodied process rather than a fixed image.

My paintings construct an inner landscape shaped by lived experience, memory, and sensation. Painting, for me, is a disciplined way of listening to the body, to rhythm, and to what cannot be articulated through language alone.

BIO

Yanmei Jiang was born in Guangzhou, China. She completed her MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2023. She is currently based in New York.

Yanmei began her artistic journey with photography in China and gained recognition for her series Me and Me, which received the 2016 Taipei Photo New Talent Award and the 2015 Xitek EOS New Talent Award. Her work has been collected by institutions such as the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation in Germany and the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum in China. In 2021, Me and Me was featured in the book ABOUT US: Young Photography in China by Hirmer Publishers.

In 2021, Yanmei expanded her practice to include painting and installation. Her recent work has been shown in New York at venues such as LatchKey Gallery, VillageOneArt Gallery, and ChaShaMa (2023). In 2025, she presented her first solo exhibition at the Chinese American Arts Council in New York, meanwhile, she completed a residency at the AnkhLave Art Residency on Governors Island, New York.

Education

2021-2023, Master of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, New York, USA
2006-2010, Bachelor of International Journalism, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China

Awards and Honors

2016, Taipei Photo New Talent Award, Taiwan China.
2016, Dummy Award Kassel, Shortlist, Germany.
2016, Three Shadows Photography Award, Shortlist, China.
2015, Xitek EOS New Talent Award, China.

Residency

2025, AnkhLave Art Residency on Governors Island, New York.
2023, ChaShaMa Exhibition Residency, New York.

Collections

2020, Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation, Germany.
2020, Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, China.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions:

2025, A Toe in the Water, Chinese American Arts Council/456 Gallery, New York, US
2017, Me and Me, Ray Art Center, Shanghai, China.
2016, Me and Me, the 12th Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Lianzhou, China.

Group exhibitions:

2025, Anything Goes, Bushwick Open Studio, Brooklyn, US
2025, Performance, Blue Line: A Journey of Reawakening, AnkhLava Art Residency on Governors Island, New York, US.
2025, ‘The Journey’—Annual exhibition of Hot Water Cool Art, New York, US.
2024, Art Groove Art Show, New York, US.
2024, Welcome to the Wonderland, CP Project Space, New York, US.
2023, Playground and Dreams, ChaShaMa Gallery, New York, US.
2023, Idylls & Reveries, VillageOneArt Gallery, New York, US.
2023, Cement, TaiL of A Gecko, Temple Gallery & Tutu Gallery, New York, US.
2023, Echo Box, Latchkey Gallery, New York, US.
2023, Stockwell Collective, Boston, US.
2021, Wild Horses’, Sim Smith Gallery, London, UK.
2018, 17th DongGang International Photo Festival, DongGang, Korea.
2017, Les Rencontres De La Photographie, Arles, France.
2017, LensCulture Winter Exhibition, online.
2017, Photography Handmade Book, Lishui Photography Festival, Lishui, China.
2017, The Port and the Image Project: Documenting China’s Harbor Cities, China Port Museum, China.
2017, The 2nd Ningbo International Photography Week, Ningbo, China.
2017, La Maison de Z “Made In China”, Arles, France.
2017, Record Keeping- Invitation Exhibition of International Photography at Xi’an, Xi’an, China.
2016, Shanghai Photofair, Shanghai, China.
2016, Taipei Photo Festival, Taipei, Taiwan China.
2016, Xitek New Talent Award, Shanghai PHOTOFAIRS, Shanghai, China.
2016, The 8th Fotobook Festival Kassel, Germany / Beijing, China.Fotoleggendo, Rome, Italy; PhotoIreland, Dublin, Ireland; Fotogalleriet, Oslo, Norway; Organ Vida Festival, Zagreb, Croatia; Month of Photography Festival, Bratislava, Slovakia; Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal; Photobook Week, Aarhus, Denmark; Format Festival, Derby, UK.
2016, The 8th Three Shadows Photography Award, Beijing/Xiamen, China.
2015, Gucang Dummy Award Martin Parr Edition, Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Lianzhou, China.
2015, CONNECT: A Curated Group Exhibition of LensCulture Network Photographers.
2015, The 17th Lishui Photography Festival, Lishui, China.
2015, @Daily Snapshot, the 15th Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China.
2013, En Ning, The Fence, Volume: Birmingham’s Art, Book, & Print Fair, Birmingham, UK.
2013, The 15th Lishui Photography Festival, Lishui, China.
2013, From Print to Publishing: The Changing Role of the Book in China and the UK, Chinese Arts Center, Manchester, UK.
2012, Times Museum Community Art Festival, Guangzhou, China.
2012, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan.
2012, Caochangdi Photo Spring, Beijing, China.

Publications

ABOUT US. Young Photography in China

Publisher: Hirmer Publishers, Munich

ISBN 978-3-7774-3656-2

Date: 2021

Artists: Adou / Birdhead / Cai Dongdong / Cao Fei / Chen Ronghui / Chen Wei / Chen Wenjun & Jiang Yanmei / Cheng Alex Huanfa / Fan Ye / Gao Bo / Gao Mingxi / Jiang Pengyi / Jiang Zhi / Li Yang / Liang Xiu / Liao Pixy / Liu Ke & Huang Huang / Liu Rachel / Liu Tao / Luo Yang / Mo Yi / Mu Ge / Ren Hang / Rong Rong / Rong Rong & Inri / Shen Wei / Shi Yangkun / Sun Yanchu / Wang Bing / Wang Ningde / Wei Bi / Wen Fang / Weng Fen/ Yang Fudong / Yin Xiuzhen / Zhang Huan / Zhang Kechun / Zhang Xiao;

The Port and The Image: Documenting China’s Harbor Cities

Published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House

ISBN 978-7-5535-0889-4

Date: 2017

Photographers: Chen Wenjun & Jiang Yanmei, Huang Zhengwei, Li Chaoyu, Xu Hao, Yang Yuanyuan, Zheng Chuan, Zhu Lanqing

Publish

IMA Magazine, Lens Culture, Tencent·To Live, Artco China Magazine, Chip Foto Video Magazine, Citizine Magazine, New Weekly Magazine, Marie Claire the Magazine, Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine, Economic Weekly Magazine, Blog Weekly Magazine, CBN Weekly Magazine, Portrait Magazine, South Reviews Magazine, People‘s Photography, VICE China, Yogurt Magazine, Edge of Humanity Magazine, Tencent News, Netease News, Sina News, Artron Network, The Paper Network, China Photographers Association Network and other publications.