Shuyi Cao

Shuyi Cao is a New York–based artist whose practice moves through sculpture, film, and installation to explore how matter remembers and transforms worlds. Rooted in alchemical approaches to material and knowledge osmosis, Cao’s work unfolds through speculative archaeology and ecological fiction. Working with fragments that have already lived many lives, she assembles materials into a dispersed ecology shaped by both human and planetary metabolism. Her methods synthesize dynamic spatiotemporal configuration and material transformation, from the assemblage of natural matters, to ceramic and glass making with wild clay, sand, mineral, and earth elements, to digital fabrication such as 3D printing and virtual environment simulation.

Cao Shuyi’s work has been internationally exhibited, including recent solo exhibitions at Gathering, London (2025), Island Gallery, New York (2024), the 11th Biennale nationale de sculpture contemporaine, Quebec (2024); duo exhibitions at UCCA Clay Museum, China (2025), ParaSite, Hongkong (2023); and group exhibitions at Orange County Museum of Art, California (2025), Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2024), He Art Museum, Foshan (2023), Aranya Art Centre, Beidaihe (2023), Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai (2021), among others.