will you meet me by the river’s edge
Yeni Mao
Artist in residence exhibition

The sculptural practice of Yeni Mao engages in issues of fragmentation, exploring equations of the body and architecture through restraint, domination and absence. Working with the agency of materials, objects and building systems, his works emphasize the tension between both their embedded and perceived significance. Mao layers his own personal histories over the expansiveness of these concerns. In his new installation at Co-Lab, Mao will engage concepts of animism and ancestral knowledge through ceramic, steel and leather sculptural elements. The installation will pursue ties between the personal, contemporary, and prescient natures of the multivalent symbol of the serpent. 

Yeni Mao was born in Canada, and spent his developmental years in the United States. He received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and subsequently trained in foundry work in California, and the architectural industries of New York. In 2016 Mao relocated to Mexico City. Yeni Mao’s work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions. Most recently, Mao opened a public sculpture with Brooke Benington in London, presented the solo exhibitions "I desire the strength of nine tigers" at Fierman Gallery in New York, and “vol. 2: cabal” at PAOS in Guadalajara, Mexico. Among the many group exhibitions he has participated in are “Otrxs Mundxs“ at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, “Transnational” at Proxyco and “The Waste Land” at Nicelle Beauchene in New York; and The IX Bienal De Artes Visuales Nicaraguenses in Nicaragua. Mao is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 2021, and has been awarded multiple residencies including Casa Wabi in Mexico, The Lijiang Studio and Red Gate Gallery in China, The Fountainhead Residency in Miami, OAZO-AIR in Amsterdam, and Flash Atöyle in Turkey. Mao’s work has been written about in The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Advocate, The Village Voice, and the Bangkok Post. In February 2022 he will open his next solo exhibition at Campeche in Mexico City.


Special thank you to Armadillo Clay, East Side Pot Shop, Genna Williams, and Habitable Spaces for their assistance and generosity.