we’re too unmedicated and caffeinated for real life

Jun 1, 2025 | 2025 Summer - Finding Community

By Jennie Cao

Artist Statement: This piece is a recollection of memories from study dates with my partner, where we did anything but focus on the future. It was filled with daydreaming, nostalgia, and us blatantly running away from reality.

Jennie Cao is a painter making works from in-between spaces. She seeks to create art to represent the disconnection and desperate reconnection with her own culture, as well as body dysmorphia, interpersonal relationships, and past traumas. Her current work focuses on Asian American bodies and their perception in the West, and unpacks the violence of fetishization and assimilation. She is currently pursuing her B.F.A. in Painting at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

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