Ji has a daily ritual: entering the cold waters of the San Francisco Bay before dawn and emerging with the sunrise. That practice of dissolution and return has become the animating force of her work, translating the physical sensation of water into layered, luminous paintings that blur the boundaries between self and environment, body and landscape. Drawing on years of open water swimming and a deeply intuitive studio process, she approaches the canvas the way she moves through water — adding, erasing, and resurfacing.