Selena Yang: San Francisco painter exploring molecular plant cell biology

Selena Yang is a San Francisco-based painter translating molecular plant cell biology into surreal landscapes. Her practice centers on Organic Utopia: a world where biological intelligence, scientific discovery, and human connection are inseparable. She collaborates with institutions, academics, non-profits, and individuals to move between evidence and imagination.

Raised by research scientists, she paints the world she grew up in. Microbiology is full of beauty, yet its stories are rarely told or connected to human experience. By painting cell signaling at the scale of landscapes, Yang invites viewers into an atmosphere of reverence, fear, wonder, and amazement; a way to feel more connected to what keeps them alive and grounded within the living world.

Yang earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she also studied computation, technology, and culture. In 2018, she received first place in the international Science Without Borders Challenge, selected from more than 600 submissions spanning 38 countries. She has since exhibited at 111 Minna Gallery, collaborated with Ming Rui Art Museum, and created commissioned works honoring leading plant scientists. Alongside her studio practice, Yang has designed consumer and medical technologies at Google, Netflix, Sonos, and Johnson & Johnson; experiences that inform her interest in the relationship between living systems and human-made ones.