Biography
Kaifan Wang was born in 1996 in Hohhot, China. Wang’s work is informed by his childhood memories in his home city, which has a long cultural history whose traces are undermined by urban development and the alienation of natural environment. Drawing from his memories and life experiences, Wang expresses in his work a kind of struggle, which develops, also formally, into reconciliation and a self-created sense of security through painting: in Wang’s paintings violent collisions are slowly covered and summarised by careful lines and moods. Acknowledging that Chinese and Western abstract paintings have completely different intellectual processes, Wang reflects on culture and identity, without offering easy answers that lead to immediate satisfaction. From a young age, Wang studied traditional Chinese painting before moving to Beijing, where he encountered contemporary art. The artist studied in Shanghai and Florence, before completing his Fine Arts education at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Kaifan Wang is currently based in Berlin.
