Jenie Gao is a full-time artist, creative director, and entrepreneur. Her arts practice is based in printmaking, public art, social practice, and storytelling. She also has a niche consulting in equitable best practices and systems for cultural organizations. They strive to create records and claim space for resilient, diverse stories.

Jenie pulls from personal experiences as a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American woman who grew up in rural Kansas, who worked their way into unexpected roles in the corporate world and beyond. Prior to founding her business, Jenie worked in the arts, public education, and lean manufacturing. Through her interdisciplinary work, Jenie advocates for equity for artists, fair pay for labor, and building equitable communities that work better for everyone. She has hired and mentored 25 paid interns and apprentices through her apprenticeship program at Jenie Gao Studio. She has been in business full-time for seven years and ran a 1,700 square foot art studio in Teejop (Madison, Wisconsin) until summer 2021 when they relocated to Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she is currently developing a body of work and research on artists' ethics and institutional accountability.

Jenie studied at Washington University in St. Louis. She is a current MFA candidate (2023) at Emily Carr University Art + Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people. Their work has been exhibited, collected, and published in the US, UK, Argentina, Denmark, and more. Her recent solo shows have been at Museum of Wisconsin Art, Diane Endres Ballweg Gallery, and UW Whitewater’s Crossman Gallery. Jenie's work has been featured on platforms including PBS, Fête Chinoise, and Shoutout LA. She is a TEDx Madison speaker and former artist-in-residence at Proyecto’ace in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Museo de Arte Moderno in Chile; Iowa Lakeside Laboratory; the Bubbler at Madison Public Library; and Artist Campaign School with Fractured Atlas.

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