Liang Yuanwei inaugurated her career at a time when a multitudes of cultures that included academic realism, symbolism, and a tendency toward grand narratives that map out the Chinese counterparty art scene was at its peak. Against the backdrop of globalisation, Liang Yuanwei became one of this new generation who not only situated everydayness and individualism in the framework but also thrived for more detailed and specific aspects around such topics. It is not the represented narrative but how progress itself becomes the outcome that underlies Liang Yuanwei’s painting trajectory. This has further led her to a more thorough and critical exploration of the dynamics and interrelations between concept and form. Liang Yuanwei repetitively responds to temporality, materiality, and individual experience through her works that are based upon logic, continuity, and integrity.

To continually adapt to social and historical movements by immersing oneself within them has always been Liang Yuanwei’s priority. As an everyday object often seen in her paintings, the flower is not so much seen as a natural object but rather as the pattern widely printed on fabrics as the products of industrialisation and consumerism, and as artificial objects given with multiple layers of social contexts. Throughout the progress of re-appropriating such found objects, Liang Yuanwei constantly practices with and further expands both its original forms and their connotations. In her recently developed path, Liang Yuanwei has applied a much more intuitive and impressive visual language that is both carnal and social, shedding light upon private experiences as well as shared ones. The more the scale of the flower is enlarged, the fewer mediums are utilised, and the fewer modifications Liang Yuanwei applies. As the artist uses brutal and structural brushstrokes to gradually replace the subtle lines, she also unravels the fantasies by encouraging both herself and the spectators to confront the cruelty that lies at the core of art.

From spontaneously perceiving and instrumentalising theory to form an independent working system, to consciously emancipating the perceptions from such an increasingly formalised system, Liang Yuanwei aims to reach her true self which is reflect- ed in this complex human world wherein fast-paced conditions take place. For her, as the cultural vessels from Europe and China are not meant to be coinciding but intertwining with one another in the nonlinear river of time, such eventful sparkles arising from the temporal flows in the history of human civilisation are worth contemplating and delving deeper into.

Liang Yuanwei graduated from the China Central Academy of Fine Art, where she received her BA and MA degrees. She currently lives and works in Beijing. As one of the most important emerging artists of the generation, Liang has exhibited her art in various spaces including the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Museum of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing), Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai), Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley), and Foundation Joan Miró (Barcelona). She was also one of the participating artists in the China Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). Her solo exhibitions include One Object (Hunan Museum, Changsha, 2019), Behind the Curtain (Palazzo Pisani-Conservatorio de Musica, Venice, 2017), Oval (Xi’an OCAT, 2015), The Tension between a Bow and an Elephant (Pace London, 2014), Pomegranate (Beijing Commune, 2013), Golden Notes (Beijing Commune, 2010), 51m2: 15# Liang Yuanwei (Taikang Space, 2010), and BLDG115 RM 1904: Liang Yuanwei’s Solo Show (Boers-Li Gallery, 2008). Golden Notes was selected by ARTFORUM magazine as one of the most valuable painting shows in 2010, and The Tension between a Bow and an Elephant was listed in ARTFORUM’s ‘Must See: 5 London Shows Opening This Week’. Her works have been included in publications such as Younger than Jesus (Phaidon, 2009) and Vitamin P2 (Phaidon, 2011).