Born in Beijing, Xiang Jing grew up during the Cultrual Revolution, and entered the Beijng Fine Art Academy in the mid 1980s, a time when a new generation of artists becan to shift the locus of their works from collective to individual definition. Xiang came to prominence with her unnerving fiberglass figures, sculptures of animals, men and women filled with melancholy. The seeming realism with which she creates her sculpture are distorted with a psychological tension, or emotional struggle. As the curator Zhu Zhu comments, Xiang's works attempts to transcend materiality, akin to the Buddhist pursuit of freedom from earthly possessions. This is given greater social significance when compared to the increasing material culture of contemporary China.
Read MoreXiang graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts with her master’s degree in 1995 . She taught at the Department of Fine Arts in Shanghai Normal University from 1999 to 2007. Together with her husband Qu Guangci, she has her own studio–X+Q Sculpture Studio established in 2007. She now lives and works in Beijing.
