Chen Jiao received her Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from one of the most renowned and elite art academies in China, the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in Chongqing. Chen was also selected to study art in Germany on a special scholarship in 2007.
In 2006, Chen Jiao was awarded the Gold Prize at the finalists' exhibition of the Chinese Art Prize (CAP) for Chinese emerging artists. Chen was selected as the top emerging Chinese artist out of over 1,000 applicants to the Chinese Art Prize. In the same year, she held her first museum show at one of China's leading art museums, the He Xiangning Museum of Art in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. Since then, Chen Jiao has had solo exhibitions at Art Scene Warehouse in Shanghai in 2007 and 2008. Her work has also been exhibited internationally, with pieces displayed at the prestigious Art Cologne art fair in 2007 and 2008, as well as exhibitions in Miami, Florida and Washington, D.C.
Chen Jiao relies on her memory as inspiration for her artwork. Meticulous and carefully measured, her pieces reflect the industrial milieu in which she was raised. Littered with formulas and measurements, her works have a calculated yet ironically authentic feel, akin to that of blueprints or maps. Jiao’s perspective is paramount to understanding her work; she feels that “the most powerful expression is the true depiction of the object itself”. In evoking her memory of a building, she focuses only on the building itself, surrounding it with empty, obscure space and thereby leaving it disjointed from its environs like an isolated thought.
Her blackboards, also memories from her childhood, are carefully made to look aged and worn. Chen Jiao’s attention to detail is evident in her inclusion of elements such as children’s scribbles and teacher’s scoring to add a layer of authenticity to the works.
