In Winter We Bloomed Still Painting

Jerielyn Mao is a Taiwanese-American mixed-media artist and illustrator, based in Los Angeles and Taipei. She graduated from ArtCenter College of Design, with a BFA in Illustration. One of Jerielyn's objectives as an artist is for her viewers to empathize with what they have yet to experience personally. Her work frequently challenges viewers to question whether or not they find what they see to be appealing to the eye or mind, and why. It invites them to discover something heart-felt within her constructs. Her aesthetics is often centralized on the processes and conditions of the ethereal, while at times also celebrating the rawness within the unconventional. Jerielyn is most interested in revealing beauty in the grotesque, and portraying the real within the surreal. As a woman, she is ceaselessly intrigued by the concepts of femininity and androgyny, as well as the numerous subjective definitions and modes of them. From early on in her childhood, Jerielyn has developed and harbored an interest for the bizarre, and spent much time invested in observing and attempting to understand it--within her surroundings, others, and herself. Such are among her favorite subjects.