Person

One of China’s most significant avant-garde figurative painters, Wei Dong was born in Inner Mongolia in 1968. He graduated with a BFA from Capital Normal University, Beijing, China, in 1991. As a transcultural, global artist moving between Beijing and New York, his paintings reflect a hybridised eastern/western influence, incorporating Renaissance or Mannerist figures into landscapes painted in the style of Ming Dynasty Wu School artists, as well as references to Surrealism. Wei’s paintings often take the form of erotic allegories, recontextualising symbolist aesthetics through an existentialist lens in which moral ambiguity and human weaknesses are a given. Wei Dong's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions internationally, including Observer, Klein Sun Gallery, New York, NY (2016); The Adventure of Ugliness: Wei Dong 1993-2015, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2015); and Crossroads, Sotheby's Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2015). Recent group museum shows include Six People Contemporary Painting Exhibition, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China (2014); Hot Pot: A Taste of Contemporary Chinese Art, Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Vermont, VA (2013); The Three Weary Travel Loafers, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2012); The Best of Times, The Worst of Times – Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art, ARSENALE 2012, Kiev, Ukraine (2012); Tradition and Transition, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (2010) and Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, New York, NY (2009). His work was also featured in the significant exhibition, Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, Kunst Museum, Bern, Switzerland (2005). Wei Dong currently lives and works between Beijing and New York.