Sylvia Ji is a master of capturing the dark side of the beautiful and the sublime. Macabre ‘Day Of The Dead’ catrinas intermingle with exotic empresses, with a regal elegance. Ji’s imagery is a visual elixir of life and death, combining sacred symbolism with mystical glamour and opulence. Influenced by historical costumery, Ji incorporates Baroque detailing such as luxurious tapestries, ornamental feathers, and gold leafing into her work for a more elaborate and decorative effect.
Ji’s work encapsulates an alluring beauty that is both cutting edge and a nod to time-honored technique. Her paintings are symbolic reflections of herself, portraits of people she knows or nameless faces set in a landscape of fleeting and decaying beauty.
Possessing an artistic voice as unique as the times we live in, Ji is at once contemplative, spiritual, enigmatic, and yet whimsically funny. Above all else, it is perhaps beauty that emerges as her defining characteristic, and her art reflects this: an extension of herself; a passionate appreciation of simple aesthetic pleasure fused with intimately complex subject matter.
Sylvia Ji was born in 1982, and raised in San Francisco, California, where she received her BFA at the Academy of Art University. Upon graduation, she relocated to Los Angeles in 2005 where she currently resides. Ji’s work has been featured in numerous gallery exhibitions including White Walls, Thinkspace, Lineage Gallery, BLVD Gallery, and Art Basel’s Art Fair Now. She has been profiled in publications such as Juxtapoz, Trace, and Mesh Magazine, and her painting ‘Dona Dolorosa’ graced the cover of the LA Weekly.