Rei Xiao was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and earned her BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional study at Central Saint Martins at the University of Arts, London, United Kingdom.

She has exhibited her works in shows in Istanbul, London, Boston, and New York City and has held artist residencies at ChaNorth, Vermont Studio Center, and The Macedonia Institute.

Her first solo exhibition, “The Flea and the Acrobat,” was shown in Fragment Gallery in 2025. She is also a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and a finalist for the Bennett Prize.