J. Yuen Ling Chiu’s work investigates the relationships between migration, urban landscapes, and empire.

Her practice shifts between themes, but is underpinned by formal explorations of printmaking processes. Her new body of work, ‘Pigeons’, is inspired by the mass population of squatters occupying the Royal Iris, an abandoned ferry near her studio in Woolwich. Individual birds are lovingly set against bright colours and cherry blossoms, while anonymous interloper communities perch unwanted aboard ship.

Her other body of work is an auto-ethnographic study of Hong Kong, a city both familiar and alien, rose-coloured and shit-stained. This bond is unpicked through detailed relief prints of mundane cityscapes, and photopolymer etchings, where the flash of the camera is countered by the slow, deliberate removal of words, signage, and branding, but doubtless of its "Hong Kong-ness".

Chiu graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art with an MFA in 2007, and is currently Artist-in-Residence at Thames-side Print Studio.

She has worked as a technician in studios and higher education for the last 15 years, researching inclusive pedagogy in making spaces. Chiu is currently transitioning her traditional studio practice to lower toxicity and more sustainable printmaking methods, a project funded by Arts Council England.