Yu Rong
Artist · Educator · Designer
Yu is a New York-based multi-media artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, craft, and design. She draws from global art traditions and contemporary practices to create works that are thoughtful, experimental, and rooted in material exploration. In addition to her studio practice, she teaches art across institutions, museums, libraries, and corporate settings. Her work also includes the design of handmade, functional products for pets.
About YuRong
Yu is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator based in New York, originally from Sichuan, China. She works across fine art, craft, and design, with a practice that integrates painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, Chinese art, product design, and material-based techniques. Her work explores cross-cultural connections while honoring traditional craftsmanship and creative freedom.
Yu holds a BFA in Product Design from Parsons School of Design and an MFA in Painting from the New York Studio School. She began practicing art at age three, first through children’s art and Chinese painting, and later expanding to Western mediums like oil painting, egg tempera, watercolor, encaustic, and printmaking. Her formal and self-directed training spans studios and institutions in Brooklyn, China, Italy, and beyond.
As an exhibiting artist, Yu’s work has been shown at Ceres Gallery (New York), ARC Gallery (Chicago), CREATE Council (Catskills), and internationally at Milan Design Week, London Design Fair, and Prague Design Week, where her wine goblet design “After 5 PM” was featured. Her practice combines mediums such as oil, Chinese ink, silverpoint, cyanotype, and water marbling, along with sculpture and craft techniques including terrarium making, ceramics, slip casting, knitting, crocheting, wreath making, glass blowing, metalworking, and enameling. She also creates functional designs—from children’s toys and pet clothing to furniture and kitchenware.
Yu is deeply committed to art education and community engagement. She currently teaches at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), leading MOCAcreate, a family program where she introduces visitors to Chinese painting, calligraphy, and hands-on art techniques. Her accessible and cross-cultural teaching style has brought her to teach art workshops and host corporate creative events for clients including Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Spectrum, World Trade Center, Wieden+Kennedy, AboveGroup, Kansas City Public Library, and Ridgewood Public Library.
Yu believes in learning from the past to create with greater freedom. She views children’s innate creativity and the spirit of traditional art forms as essential sources of inspiration. Through her art and teaching, she continues to explore how cultural histories and material processes shape how we express, connect, and imagine.
