Jingqi Steinhiser

Hollow Castle

Jingqi Steinheiser’s paintings synthesize iconography from a fragmented childhood. Growing up in China as an only child to parents who were diplomats, she would live in Russia, Mongolia, and Korea before coming to the US where she would earn a BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA at Rhode Island School of Design. Jingqi’s checkered history is leaned into as she acts as the conductor of her paintings’ theatrical fairy tale motifs in a world filled with creatures and their belongings. References of old-timey cartoons are evident in animated compositions that appear to have been paused at the crescendo. A subtle nod to cubist influences are seen in her two-dimensional waves or flowers, with a backbone of surrealism and perhaps Imagism stemming from her Chicago years studying at SAIC. Jingqi’s magical worlds encourage open-ended viewer interpretations through a somewhat loosely painted collage of iconography and landscapes.