Liang Yuanwei, a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Art originally from Xi’an born in 1977, is a young artist whose photography, painting, and installation work often focuses on articulating the sites of both beauty and oppression in the semiotics of the everyday.

Her most recent work has involved themes of discretion, secrecy, interpersonal communication, domesticity, and the affect produced therein. Significantly, she seems to claim that this affect is all that fills up the empty space that dominates domesticity and everyday life. She is one of the most significant female artists of her generation in China, but her practice rejects the feminine specificity idealized by so many of her peers in favor of more broadly universal explorations of social themes.

Technically rigorous and often requiring extraordinary amounts of time and energy, Liang Yuanwei’s artistic practice forces her audience to re-inspect the subtle points of ecstasy and torture that make up the fabric of the everyday, leading to a rejection of easy answers in favor of a laborious reconstruction of the perceived environment.

Solo Exhibitions 

2008

BLDG115 RM1904, Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing, China

Group Exhibitions 

2008

Hidden Life: Apartment Diary, Lin & Keng Gallery, Beijing, China
Homesickness: Memory and Virtual Reality, T Space Gallery, Beijing, China
Red Aside, Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
Asking for It: Everyday Neurosis in Chinese Contemporary Art, Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.
Mahjong: Contemporary Art from the Sigg Collection, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, U.S.

2007

Zhu Yi! Chinese Contemporary Photography, ARTIUM of Contemporary Art, Spain

Is It Ok to Have Fun In An Art Gallery?, Beijing Tokyo Projects, Beijing, China

2006

Seven Young Artists, Zero Gallery, Beijing, China

Diffusion of International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Kwangju, Korea

Liang Yuanwei & Yangjing, Espacio Mínimo Gallery, Madrid, Spain

Limitation & Freedom, Art Center of Meishuwenxian, Wuhan

N12 Fourth Annual Exhibition, Beijing, China

Extraordinary: Non-Commercial, He Xiangning Art Terminal, Shenzhen, China

2005

N12 Third Annual Exhibition, Beijing, China
Naughty Kids, Star Gallery, Beijing, China

2004

N12 Second Annual Exhibition, Beijing, China

2003

VV2: Recycling the Future, Venice, Italy
N12 New Paintings, Beijing, China

2001

Four in One: Cooperation with Austrian Artists, Beijing, China

2000

Time of Er Chang, Beijing, China
Touch, Beijing, China
Art Project 2000, Beijing, China