Ao Jing, Here and Now
October 17 — December 24, 2026
Ao Jing (born in 1993) currently lives and works in Beijing. Her practice spans sculpture, sound, video, and performance. Often constructed from elementary forms—circle, square, or line—her sculptures take shape as strange and poetic assemblages incorporating wood, steel, leather, wire, horsehair, springs or bronze. Far from machine-like sculptures, they evoke living organisms whose complex and delicate architectures seem on the verge of coming to life.
In her studio, the artist accumulates found objects, fragments, and various materials. Long before becoming part of an artwork, these elements share her daily life through a patient process of familiarization. This proximity forms the foundation of her approach: allowing each thing to exist in and of itself, observing the relationships that develop between raw elements, and welcoming the forms that may emerge from them. “I prefer listening to what the works need rather than imposing my own desires on them,” she explains. Ao Jing’s practice is therefore not concerned with rehabilitating humble materials or critiquing consumerism through their reuse, but rather with exploring their intrinsic qualities.
The works brought together in Here and Now are the result of a residency in Alvémont, Normandy, at the artist residency of Galerie Jocelyn Wolff. While chance has always played an important role in Ao Jing’s work, it proved especially decisive here. Working primarily with materials found on site led her to narrow the range of possibilities and deepen her dialogue with each element she encountered. In this context, the artist produced bronze casts at the Bocquel art foundry, experimenting with this technique for the first time. It offered her a way of approaching matter without constraining or directly shaping it—capturing the imprint of things rather than imposing a form upon them. The resulting bronzes are incorporated into the works created in Alvémont.
Constant contact with nature also influenced the particular attention she gives to objects and things: “Over the past month, I have been working outdoors every day, listening to the birds around me and observing the ducks and nutrias in the pond. My mindset has also gradually shifted from a complex, story-driven state—when the stories in my mind quietly unfold, a crow’s sudden caw, or the loud splash of a flock of ducks landing on the pond, or a cow’s sudden bellow, or an annoying fly suddenly hitting my face, all pull my thoughts back and refocus me on the action at hand. And these “helps” have allowed me to “practice,” again and again, seeing what I am looking at more clearly.” She relates this experience to Aldous Huxley’s final novel, Island (1962), in which the forests of the utopian island of Pala resonate with the cry of a bird specially trained to remind people of the importance of the present moment: “Attention. Here and Now.”
Abraham & Wolff would like to thank Magician Space 魔金石空间 (Beijing) for its close collaboration.
Ao Jing’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at START Museum (Shanghai), SUHE HAUS – Skyline (Shanghai) and Magician Space (Beijing). Group exhibitions include that with UCCA Beijing, 69 Art Campus (Beijing), Aranya Art Center (Qinhuangdao), and more. She is the recipient of UCCA Young Associates’ Choice Awards (2023). Her works are in the collection among De Ying Foundation, Start Museum, BY ART MATTERS, M Woods Museum, and 69 Art Campus Center.