Shuyi Cao is a New York-based artist whose practice explores alchemical approaches to material, matter, and knowledge osmosis. Through archaeological speculation and ecological fiction, she contemplates the porous plurality of relations between sciences, technocultures, mythologies, and cosmologies. Her multi-medium sculpture and installation traverse enormous and microscopic scales, involving more/less/other-than-human worlds. Her making methods synthesize dynamic spatiotemporal configurations and material transformations—from ceramic and glass making with wild clay, sand, minerals, and earth elements to digital fabrication such as 3D printing and virtual environment simulation. Combining hand-crafted objects, technological artifacts, and moving images, she creates paradoxical fossils—tangible and intangible—as portals to meditate on geotrauma, transcorporeal ecology, and prehistoric futurity.
Her work has been shown internationally, including at the Orange County Museum of Art, California (2025); the 11th National Biennale of Contemporary Sculpture, Quebec (2024); Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2024); Para Site, Hong Kong (2023); He Art Museum, Foshan (2023); Aranya Art Centre, Beidaihe (2023); Hyundai Motorstudio, Beijing (2023); Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai (2021); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2021); and NARS Foundation, New York (2021). Cao is a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute and founder of Transmaterial Lab. She has held residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMOCA), New Museum NEW INC, Banff Centre for the Arts, Guangdong Times Museum, and Power Station of Art, Shanghai.
