EVELYN TAOCHENG WANG

Early Years

Evelyn Taocheng Wang was born in Chengdu in 1981. Learning about European modernism and Soviet realism in high school, she went on to study landscape painting, Chinese classical literature and calligraphy at Nanjing Normal University, graduating in 2006. She left China for Germany in 2007, where Monika Baer advised her to enrol at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Following this, she moved to Amsterdam and became a resident at De Ateliers. She has always looked outside the traditional ways of understanding art. She has said: “As students, we visited museums and copied paintings, but I struggled with the fact that everyone could interpret artworks differently.”

Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Artworks

Notions of authenticity and identity lie at the heart of Wang’s work. As a China-born, German- and Dutch-educated artist, living in the Netherlands, she can see identity as a multi-layered idea. She also addresses questions about the consequences of globalisation and migration. Her work blends the written word (often in English) with muted backgrounds and line drawings, as well as textiles and found objects, creating pieces that radiate emotion. In artworks that reference European art history alongside her lived experience having relocated to the Netherlands, humour is a key element of Wang’s practice, and she often considers cultural assimilation, expressions of gender identity and personal appearance.

• Wit comes to the fore in the eight-metre-long Booklet of Bachmann Lost Leather Shoulder Bag Refund (2020), based on a real story of Wang leaving a handbag in a German café, only for an upstanding citizen to hand it in to the police. When Wang was reunited with the bag, she also received a five-page crime report—she collaged the report and a photo of the handbag on to a rice paper scroll that also features a scene of sheep grazing.
• Using ink, pigment, mineral colour and glue, Hygiene Me (2021) features a woman scrubbing a lavatory, interspersed with a cat, and various other receptacles for water. The drawn elements of the piece seem simultaneously to attract the viewer and disappear into the background.
• Influences from Wang’s German education are present in her work. For example, 2026’s Frog Princess Checks her Smartphone in Front of the Window of August Macke’s Hat Shop begins with a recreation of Macke’s 1914 painting but adds in a Frog Princess in the corner, creating discussion around modern deepfakes and questioning what we know to be real.

Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Awards

• Dorothea von Stetten Prize (2016)
• Dolf Henkes Award (2018)
• ABN Amro Art Prize (2019)
• 2025 Wolfgang Hahn Prize (2025)

Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Sweet Landscape, Museion, Bolzano (2026)
• Friendship, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2025)
• Between the Shadow and the Highlight (with Xinyi Cheng), Antenna Space, Beijing (two-person exhibition) (2025)
• Spreading Elegance, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2025)
• Patternmaster, Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2024)
• An Organic Day, Kayokoyuki, Tokyo (2024)
• Het Licht is Rond (The Light is Round), Dordrechts Museum (2023)
• An Equivocal Contrast, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2023)
• Horizons, Museum for East Asian Arts, Cologne (2022)
• Norwegian Music in Dutch Windows, Kayokoyuki, Tokyo (2022)
• Reflection Paper, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2021)
• Heart of Eyeshadows, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2021) *Sour Gnossiennes, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2020)
• When I sought her along the river, she stood in the middle of the water, Kevin Space, Vienna (2020)
• Spreading Elegance, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims (2019)
• No Blood in the Afternoon, Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2019)
• What is he afraid of?, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and Company, New York City (2018)
• For An Embarrassed Person It is Always Very Difficult To Avoid Embarrassing Things, Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2017)
• Heatweave Wrinkle, Château Shatto, Los Angeles (2017) A Home Made Travel MV Series, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2015)
• Someone who lives in great comfort is completely enjoying it but still prays for even more fortune, Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö (2014)
• Action...Cut!, Jakarta Yuz Museum, Jakarta (2013)
• What is Revealed by the Tide, OV Gallery, Shanghai (2012)
• Private Party, Vierter Stock Galerie, Berlin (2008)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Vies miniscules (Tiny lives), Panthéon, Paris (2026)
• The Architect and The Housewife: Cleaning the House, Building the Future, Groninger Museum (2026)
• House of Nisaba: New Stories of Painting, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2026) *Skincare, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2025)
• 1985–2025, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2025)
• Foreigners Everywhere, 60th Venice Biennale (2024)
• One And All: New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting, The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Beijing (2024)
• Horizons: Is there anybody out there?, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2023)
• Linhas Tortas, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2023)
• Note to Self, Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp (2022)
• Fashion Show: Clothing, Art and Activism, The Glucksman, Cork (2022)
• It’s Just a Phase, Kjøpmannsgata Ung Kunst (KUK), Trondheim (2021)
• Shaking the Habitual, Huidenclub, Rotterdam (2021)
• Frequencies of Tradition, Times Museum, Guangzhou (2020)
• In my room, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2019)
• PSST... A Play on Gossip, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome (2018)
• Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016)
• Offspring 2014, De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2014)
• Winter Screening, Almanac Projects, London (2013)
• Art Taipei 2012, Taipei World Trade Centre (2012)
• Learning from the Literati 2, OV Gallery, Shanghai (2011)
• Absolute Distance, White Space Gallery, Beijing (2010)

Further Reading

• Evelyn Taochen Wang’s Instagram
• Artist profile at Carlos/Ishikawa
• Spotlight from Ocula magazine before the 2024 Venice Biennale
• Interview ahead of 2026’s Sweet Landscape exhibition

Evelyn Taocheng Wang FAQs

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