Jingyao Li is a contemporary jewellery artist pursuing an MFA in Jewelry + Metalsmithing at Rhode Island School of Design. She holds an MA in Designer Maker from University of the Arts London and a BSc in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology from China Medical University. Her transition from pharmaceutical biotechnology informs an exploratory approach to jewellery’s materials, functions, and boundaries. Her work begins with familiar materials, objects, routines, and ways of perceiving the world, examining how they can be reframed through jewellery—through material processes, shifts in function and meaning, and relationships with the body. She works with metal, lacquer, resin, textiles, slime mould, medicines, and chemical processes. A work from her Jewellery Coating series is held in the UAL Art Collection.

“My practice begins with moments of recognition—when a familiar object, material, routine, or way of perceiving appears different. Coming to jewellery from pharmaceutical biotechnology, I develop these observations while reimagining its materials, functions, and boundaries. By shifting material, function, and context, I reframe familiar things and invite viewers to reconsider them. Their properties, behaviours, and established uses help form new meanings. For example, pills beside gemstones reveal the aesthetic dimension of pharmaceutical design, while labels attached to the body question how labelling defines objects and people. I hope the work encourages viewers to notice what is familiar yet not fully seen, and to recognise other ways of understanding and feeling within their world.”