Jia Bao Shen, is a young artist based in Richmond, Canada. After completing her undergraduate degree in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, she channels her nocturnal musings into an evocative blend of gothic literature, dark fantasy, and the mesmerizing world beneath the sea. With a fervent focus on flowing landscapes, her art explores themes of ancient and futuristic worlds, colossal idols and cities submerged beneath the waves.

Her paintings are a symphony of contrasts, where steel flames meet coral islands, and natural contours fade into the misty forms of ancient ruins. These elements evoke a world lost to time, casting a veil of dreamlike memory fragments over desolate no-man’s lands, where life teeters on the edge of existence.

Jia Bao Shen’s work captures the soul of Eastern landscape painting, with its ethereal spirit of clouds, mist, and smoke, and the whimsical yet violent charm of Western Impressionist fantasy. Her art deconstructs and reimagines, drawing inspiration from the textured allure and demonic seduction of Tibetan Thangka.

Her creative process is an explosive collision of water and fire, absorbing diverse materials and influences to create something organically unique.

In her new 2024 series “ Surging Dragon · Departing Fire” inspired by the ancient Chinese text Chu Ci and the mythical figures of the White Dragon and Feathered Serpent, she brings to life the poetic line: “北有寒⼭，逴龙赩只” (“In the north, there are cold mountains, and the fierce dragon glows”). Through this series, she continues to weave a tapestry of past and future, reality and fantasy, inviting viewers into her hauntingly beautiful underwater realms.

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