Ling Jian was born in 1963 in Shandong, China. He graduated with a BA from the Fine Arts Department of Tsinghua University Art College, Beijing, in 1986. Drawing from preconceived notions of female beauty and Chinese identity, Ling Jian’s portraits of women are both hyperreal and exaggerated. In recent years, his work has entered a transformative phase, with bodies fragments into surreal organs and shapes, and the once-figurative image drifts into abstraction, tracing what remains of humanity amid the alienation of technology.
Ling moved from China to Europe in the late 1980s, a geographical transition which led to the artist’s experimentation with the body and performance art. Ling circles his practice around mass consumerism and society’s hypocritical stances on beauty ideals. By blending Eastern mysticism with surrealism, he creates a space in painting where the surreal and the real coexist. His series of painted women are both kitsch and politically charged; their style and compositions drawn from traditional Western portraiture, while elements of traditional Chinese culture are integrated with modern artistic forms to examine the way cultural identity is stylized and re-sold in globalization. Using conventionality as a framework to comment on society, he enlarges the eyes or reddens the lips, highlighting the hypocrisy embedded in beauty standards, sexuality, and political drama. Recently, his painting series of sharks evolved this idea further, with vague erotic themes cutting through the aggressive, feral imagery.
Ling Jian’s work has been exhibited in solo shows including Dry Provisions, Yuan Art Museum, Beijing, China (2025); Remount to decade, Beijing Waldorf Astoria, Beijing, China (2024); Ling Jian Solo Exhibition, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand (2019); Ling Jian: Song of the Ancient Birds, Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (2016); Ling Jian, Jue Lan Club, New York, NY (2016); Song of the Ancient Birds, Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (2016); Nature Chain, Klein Sun Gallery (2015); Brain and Heart, Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea (2014); Moon in Glass, Ullens Centre of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2011); and Moon in Glass, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2010).
Group shows include Constellation, Being Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2023); Forward, Cang Art Museum, Vermilion Art, Shanghai, China (2022); Bridging Asia - Europe III, The Parkview Museum, Beijing, China (2019); None Stop, Time Museum, Beijing, China (2018); On Sharks and Humanity, Parkview Square, Downtown Core, Singapore; Hong Kong Maritime Museum, Central, Hong Kong (2017); Mutual Supplementary and Wedge, Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2017); Observation/ Reference/ Gesture Contemporary Painting, Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL (2016); On Sharks and Humanity, National Museum of China, Beijing, China (2015); Face, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2012); Changing Vistas: Creative Duration, The 5th Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu, China (2011); Lovers Pieces – Contemporary Art from Five Private Collections, Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Mülheim, Germany (2010); MEDIALE, Deichtorhallen: Center for Contemporary Art and Photography, Hamburg, Germany (1993); and at the Chinese Oil Painting Biennale, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China (1993).
Ling Jian currently lives and works between Hong Kong, Beijing, and Berlin.