China Blue is an artist who captures the tenor of our times by transforming common electronic waste into biomimetic artwork with an environmental focus that also sings.  In one of her most recent works the Firefly Tree she translates the firefly’s rhythmic signaling pattern into sound heard in Firefly Chorus and light as seen in the blinking LEDs.  The loss of fireflies due to light pollution from cities makes them a succinct metaphor for the fragility of our ecosystem.  

She is fascinated by the hidden acoustics of our world such as the sounds created by the iron of the Eiffel Tower or submerged in Venice's water.  The underlying theme of her work is revealing the hidden structure of sounds in our world and how they shape our lives.  

China Blue is a two time NASA/RI Space Grant recipient and an internationally exhibiting artist who was the first person to record the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. She represented the US at OPEN XI, Venice, Italy an exhibition held in conjunction with the Architecture Biennale. Reviews of her work have been published in the New York Times, Art in America, Art Forum, artCritical and NY Arts to name a few. She has been interviewed by France 3 (TV), for the film “Com-mu-nity” produced by the Architecture Institute of America and was the featured artist for the 2006 annual meeting of the Acoustic Society of America. She has been an invited speaker at Yale, MIT, Berkelee School of Music, Reed College and Brown University and an adjunct professor and Fellow at Brown University in the United States. She is the Founder and Executive Director of The Engine Institute www.theengineinstitute.org.

REVIEW

"China Blue's work joins a larger movement in contemporary art that has returned to the subject matter of nature in an effort to find either new meaning or create new metaphors, except focuses on sustainability and the re-use of recyclable materials. .... China Blue's work emerges from the subjective-objective dichotomy that...while suggesting an authenticity that occurs through the creation of an action for every reaction."

Jill Conner
Editor Whitehot and writer for Art in America

REVIEWS

Aqua Alta-OPEN XI

Tour Eiffel

“Smart & sexy work”
Seth Horowitz, PhD, Bioacoustics Technical Committee, Acoustical Society of America

"The bleeding edge of creative sound",
Lance Massey, Creative Director, NeuroPop Sound Design

“Blue succeeded in encouraging viewers to investigate the energetic and diverse content of the gallery.”
Sarah Valdez, Art in America

She is "pioneering a really challenging terrain and doing so with incredible formal strength"
Ed Winkleman, Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY

"Her work is real art. It can effect my emotional environment. The complex sonic layering is calming, bright, elevating and woven with a rich visual palette. Brilliant work in the vein of early Terry Riley."
Paul Hasegawa-Overacker, Producer of “Guest of Cindy Sherman” and past writer for ArtNet