Junying Ren

Junying Ren is a Chinese contemporary jewellery artist currently based in Japan. Her work demonstrates an exceptionally high level of forging skill. Formally it presents a rational and restrained sense of order, while at the same time revealing a strong emotional energy.

Born in Qinhuangdao, Ren graduated in 2017 from the Jewellery Design programme at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. She subsequently pursued further study in Japan, obtaining a master’s degree in metalwork from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2020, and completing a doctoral degree in 2024. Her cross-cultural experiences of study and life have deepened her reflection on the relationships between order, spirituality, and the complexity of reality, allowing her works to reveal a distinctive value system marked by a strong personal character.

Ren approaches metal in different states with an almost psychoanalytic attitude. Rusted copper and iron are used in her works as metaphors for the background of a complex reality: the unstoppable passage of time, the unpredictability of fate, and the persistent erosion and disorder that permeate the real world. She shapes silver forms in a disciplined and restrained manner, arranging them into near-immortal organic structures, such as orchid-like plant forms. These silver structures symbolise an idealised spiritual realm. By juxtaposing corrosion with purity, and chaos with order, she allows material itself to become the central carrier of philosophical metaphor.

In Ren’s works, an idealised spiritual world and a chaotic reality coexist in an intertwined form. Sanctity and decay are held within the same structure, giving rise to a tension that is restrained yet turbulent. Through forging, she solidifies the contradictory states of existence within metal, allowing the work to become a field of reflection that continues to unfold.