Chen Gao

Chen Gao is an interdisciplinary artist and designer based in Detroit and Chicago Metropolitan Area, USA. She received her MFA degree in 2D Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Gao is currently teaching graphic design at the School of Art + Design at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Her work has taken many shapes, including free drawing, film photography, poetic writing, installation, and performance. She explores the fantasy of ideal freedom that extracts from the real world and asserts the power of unconsciousness and dreams. This is all about her emotional life of being.

She is not creating a form but building an atmosphere to convey a sense of void. Gao’s work has been celebrated in several exhibitions and (group) projects nationally and internationally, including the Library Mural Project at Toledo Museum of Art Reference Library and An Inspired Age at Toledo Museum of Art. She was selected to exhibit work in VAN GOGH Art Gallery in Madrid, Spain, Holy Art Gallery in London, and the Jackson Junge Gallery in Chicago.

Gao is interested in continuing her professional studio practice in association with art education.

School of Art + Design - UIUC

Aug 2022

Lecturer

• ARTD 222 Typographic Practice, ARTD 595 MFA Design for Responsible Innovation Studio,
• ARTD 333 Type & Image, ARTD 444 Typographic Systems

Drawing Imagination Back to Grass

May 2022

Workshop Leader

• Workshop in relation to my installation and performance

Western Michigan University

Apr 2022

Visiting Critic/Reviewer 

• Contributed to student portfolio reviews

Columbia Global Centers|Beijing Jun 2021 - Sept 2021

Curatorial Assistant - ANOBO International Children’s Tech and Art Traveling Exhibition

• Assisted curator in setting up artworks
• Created promo graphic designs for the exhibition

UToledo Online - Instructional Design

Jun 2018 - Mar 2020

Multimedia Designer 

• Recorded, filmed and edited over fifty auxiliary videos for online and offline courses at UT
• Designed banners and redesigned the information architecture for the UT online website

United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)

Aug 2020 - Nov 2020

Design Volunteer 

• Support team with creating the design of the corporate presentation
• Consists of text, tables, iconography, graphs, and images

United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)

Jul 2017 - Aug 2017

Event Assistant - The First International Life Science Summer Summit (Beidaihe)

• Assisted with the broadcasting and lighting of the summit in the video & audio station
• Accommodated foreign guests, including introducing local culture and guiding them around the city

Cranbrook Academy of Art

MFA in 2D Design (elective in Architecture)

The University of Toledo

BFA in Graphic and Interactive Media (minor in Art History)