Jingwen Cao is a photography-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the tension between detachment and immersion, rational order and sensory ambiguity. Through image-making, she investigates the psychological dimensions of perception, using visual flatness and spatial compression to create distant yet evocative viewing experiences. Her work often captures artificial landscapes and architectural spaces, stripping them of context and transforming them into ambiguous, open-ended visual fields that invite subjective interpretation. With an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from OCAD University, Jingwen’s practice reflects a deep engagement with both the conceptual and technical possibilities of photography, expanding its boundaries into installation and spatial presentation.




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In my work, I use photography not as a tool for representing reality but rather as a trigger for perception and contemplation. I photograph artificial landscapes and architectural spaces, then manipulate perspective and spatial relationships through post-production, rendering the images visually flattened and slightly detached from reality. Though drawn from recognizable environments, they often resist clear identification, hovering in a state that feels both familiar and ambiguous.

Within these images, order and abstraction seem to converge. The man-made environments I capture—structured by function and regulation—are subtly distilled into a more restrained visual language. Through controlled color and subdued lighting, I aim to hold the images at a slight emotional distance, allowing them to remain open to interpretation. This neutrality offers space for viewers to project their own associations, whether emotional, sensory, or purely visual.

When exhibited, I tend to present the works at a large scale, allowing the images to extend beyond the limits of straightforward viewing. In this format, time feels less linear—the stillness of the image creates room for a more inward, expansive experience, one that unfolds through the viewer's perception rather than through narrative progression.

Rather than conveying a fixed message, the works remain intentionally open-ended. They seem to occupy a space between order and ambiguity, rationality and emotion. Without offering definitive answers, they invite viewers to engage freely—whether through memory, sensation, or fleeting intuition.