By: CiCi Zhang
At the 2025 NYCxDESIGN Festival’s “Infinite Weave” exhibition, artist and designer Jing Wang introduced Pattern Leap, a cross-disciplinary project that blends visual art, poetry, and UX design. During her panel talk, “Designing the Invisible: Uncover Hidden Emotions Through Art to Awaken Design Spirituality,” she expanded the conversation beyond traditional boundaries, exploring how art might help address emotional needs in an era increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence.
Pattern Leap delves into the ongoing disconnection between identity, culture, and daily life in the digital age. Through abstract visual works and poetic inquiry, Jing examines the connections between cultural awareness, self-identity, confidence, and a sense of belonging. Simultaneously, she uses UX design as a means of bridging these gaps. Her cross-disciplinary approach highlights how cultural and historical values weave through time and space, offering the potential for spiritual grounding and renewed meaning.
Jing Wang is a multifaceted professional, recognized as a UX designer, artist, poet, strategist, and critical thinker. Her work has earned her several awards, including the Muse Design Awards, Titan Business Awards, and the Emerging Woman Artist Award, among others. She has exhibited her art at international venues such as the Memor Museum, Penn Museum, and the London Design Festival, with her work also featured in publications like Visual Arts Journal and Artist Talk Magazine.
The concept behind Pattern Leap stems from a fundamental question: How can cultural awareness be meaningfully integrated into daily life? “Patterns, as an art form, often reflect cultural symbols or their variations,” Jing explains. “Many of the patterns we encounter every day are rooted in history and culture. They serve as an ideal way to embed cultural consciousness into our routine experiences.”
Jing believes that the search for meaning is a universal pursuit, whether consciously acknowledged or not. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in daily life, grappling with issues of identity, belonging, and purpose takes on greater urgency. Through her art, she seeks to reveal emotional responses that may often lie below the surface of awareness.
“Art is much more than a form of expression,” Jing explains. “It allows us to uncover hidden feelings from the subconscious and present them to ourselves in an intuitive way. As designers, this is significant because these hidden feelings often highlight aspects we need to address. Only through awareness can we begin to explore, reflect, and make thoughtful adjustments to improve our experiences.”
For Jing, poetry plays a similar role in her artistic process: “Writing and refining poetry helps me observe, test, and rethink emotional responses. It opens a window into people’s subtle expressions and inner worlds.”
This philosophy informed her panel discussion at the “Infinite Weave” exhibition, where Pattern Leap demonstrated how artistic creation and UX design can be intertwined, each inspiring and enhancing the other. The artworks, driven by human-centered research, form part of the broader UX experience, cultivating cultural resonance and fostering a deeper sense of belonging in the everyday.
As an independent series, the artworks transform city maps into symbolic representations of human profiles through layered abstraction. For example, Artwork No. 7 blends a dancing figure with a reflective silhouette, conveying both joy and introspection within a rich cultural context. Artwork No. 9 uses a road network to abstract two whispering faces, subtly illustrating how cultural influences spread across time and space. Accompanied by poetry, these works encourage deep reflection and invite viewers to engage meaningfully.
“I want audiences to feel both seen and welcomed,” Jing Wang shares. “I hope they feel invited to rediscover their connection with culture, identity, and meaning in this swiftly evolving era.”
Jing Wang views Pattern Leap as an ongoing exploration—an evolving dialogue with culture and its interconnected facets. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms, she reminds us that the invisible often holds some of the most profound insights.
Published by Gabriel T.
