Gu Wenda is a contemporary Chinese artist celebrated for merging traditional ink painting and experimental installations. View Gu Wenda’s artworks on artnet. Learn about the artist and find an in-depth biography, exhibitions, original artworks, the latest news, and sold auction prices.

Powdered Chinese hair made into the biological liquid ink and ink stick format are the new materials for Chinese ink painting. The hair-made genetic ink itself is an art object, and at the same time, it is a component of my new installation.

Gu Wenda positioned himself as the founder of contemporary experimental ink painting in China and an impactful cultural commentator, his works continually bridge the gap of cultural and language barriers in the era of globalization. In 1997, he was named one of the top 10 painters in the history of Chinese painting by China Online.

Gu is most well known for his use of pseudo-languages in most of his works. Ever since the exhibition of Chinese Painting Invitational in Wuhan City in 1984, Gu's large scale ink paintings have been increasingly exhibited.

Gu Wenda is an influential contemporary Chinese artist celebrated for merging traditional ink painting and experimental installations. Gu has developed a personal vocabulary of invented Chinese characters by misplacing various aspects of existing characters to create new and meaningful words.

Gu Wenda (1955­– ) is a Chinese artist born in Shanghai who lives and works in New York City. Known for his large-scale ink paintings and multi-media installations that use human hair, his work deals with themes of traditional Chinese calligraphy and language, cultural identity, and internationalism.

By weaving together this common but profoundly personal material, gu reflects on the relationship between human interconnectedness and distinct personal identities. gu wenda. Photo courtesy of gu wenda studio. “One can’t combine every living person into a single work, but one can use DNA as a representation.

Gu Wenda positioned himself as the founder of contemporary experimental ink painting in China and an impactful cultural commentator, his works continually bridge the gap of cultural and language barriers in the era of globalization. In 1997, he was named one of the top 10 painters in the history of Chinese painting by China Online.

Always a trailblazer, Gu was one of the first Chinese artists to pursue performance art and to gain international recognition for abstract ink-based art.

Gu Wenda: Calligraphy 4, 1986. Ink on paper,100.3 x 68.6 cm. Gu moved to New York in 1987 and has one of the highest profiles among artists in the Chinese diaspora. He graduated from the Shanghai School of Arts, got his MFA from the China Academy of Art and studied under the classical landscape master Lu Yanshao (1909-1993).