Jinya Zhao: Holding Air, Holding Light

A poetic, cross-cultural meditation on light, colour and perception through the sculptural practice of artist Jinya Zhao, featuring writing by Emma Crichton-Miller and Dr Xiaoxin Li.

Jinya Zhao: Holding Air, Holding Light explores the sculptural and perceptual work of artist and researcher Jinya Zhao. Combining her signature use of blown glass with drawing, installation and spatial choreography, Zhao's works inhabit a liminal space—between fragility and presence, memory and light, visibility and sensation. Rather than present objects as finished forms, Zhao creates conditions for perception. Her works shift under natural light, respond to atmosphere and dissolve the distinction between seeing and feeling. Using transparency, layering and spatial tension, she invites viewers to pause and inhabit a moment of perceptual suspension. As she writes: 'Glass is not what I make, but how I listen to time.' By integrating theory and practice, Zhao constructs immersive encounters that heighten sensory awareness, transforming glass into an artistic language that connects memory, perception and experience.

The book includes an essay by Emma Crichton-Miller, arts journalist, critic and author, who situates Zhao's work within a wider contemporary context of poetic minimalism and material resonance. A conversation with Dr Xiaoxin Li, Curator in the Asia Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, extends the discussion into questions of cultural space, temporality and how we interpret sensory experience across traditions.

Holding Air, Holding Light is part of the Hurtwood Contemporary Artist Series, which aims to spotlight a talented and diverse range of artists, whether established or early in their careers. It has been published in collaboration with Taste Contemporary in Geneva, a gallery that showcases dynamic and compelling contemporary and 20th-century works by artists who excel in material-driven expressions of form, including Jinya Zhao, one of its represented artists.

Featuring 50 full-colour images, Jinya Zhao: Holding Air, Holding Light is a beautifully constructed meditation on perception as process, light as substance and material as invitation. It is a book not only to look at, but to dwell within.