CAMOC is pleased to host a very special artist talk with our current Spotlight Artist, Jingqi Wang Steinhiser, on her exhibition Hanging Bird, Moving Castle and the art of world-building!

This artist talk will explore imagined inner worlds through painting, symbolism, and cross-cultural research. Through dreamlike houses and symbolic animals, Jingqi’s recent works investigate “home” as a psychological space shaped by memory, displacement and imagination.

This talk will also introduce The Symbolic Bestiary & Herbarium, an ongoing cross-cultural dictionary researching the symbolic meanings of animals and plants across folklore, literature, religion, cinema, and lived experience. Together, these two projects examine how storytelling, symbolism, and personal mythology can construct emotional and psychological spaces beyond physical geography.

Jingqi Wang Steinhiser is a multi-media painter born in China and raised in Mongolia. Jingqi received her MFA in painting at Rhode Island School of Design(RISD) and BFA in painting at School of the Art Institute of Chicago(SAIC).