About

Chao-Ying Rao (b. 1991, China)
Glasgow, UK



Chao-Ying Rao is an East Asian visual and performance artist whose practice involves negotiating complexities around objectification and narcissism, often using humour as a tool to disarm and charm the viewer. She is interested in the absurdity of desire, excessive consumption, racial and bodily fetishisation, and abject femininity. Her background in dance comes from years of working as a stripper in Edinburgh and London.

She inspired by vintage playboy centrefolds and misogynistic pop culture truisms. Working with Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Creed’s monstrous feminine, her performances play with that very fine line between attraction and repulsion.


This website was made in close collaboration with my dear friend and fellow artist Rodrigo Nava Ramirez, it draws inspiration from early MySpace and GeoCities sites to humorously play with notions of hyperfemininity and narcissism. Rodrigo (he/him) is an artist and web programmer from Mexico City currently based in Berlin.