b. 1995 Henan, China. Lives and works in London, UK.
YaYa Yajie Liang’s work explores the metamorphosis of the body itself and the potential of becoming animal. From the legendary banished beast to the interpenetration of biological space and represented space with body, Liang interrogates how humans’ analogic mapping to and from animals (within imagined, lived, or taxonomic intimacies) casts a trans light back on the human to help us reconsider the prescribed definition of ‘humanity’, and bleeds ‘animality’, the ‘stuff’ of animal nature that sticks to animals in zombie humanism, back onto the humanness’s texture.
Taking inspiration from Agential Realism, Liang views painting as a movement that is constantly repeating the ‘becoming’. Shifting restlessly between abstract and figurative modes, she uses improvisation to kick-start new paintings, allowing unplanned initial strokes to help dictate the works’ subsequent direction. With the collapse of a single central system of representation, the unruly encounter between diverse centres, superimposed perspectives, coexisting moments, and materials are produced and reshaped in the process of painting. Taking the risk of implanting harm, Liang intensively invests in the agency of inanimate material. By transforming paint into flesh, her painting interrogates the cracks within the specific binary of animate and inanimate.
YaYa Yajie Liang (b. 1995, Henan, China) has a BA Fine Art China Central Academy of Fine Arts (2018) and a MA Painting at Royal College of Art (2020). YaYa Yajie Liang has been shortlisted for The Waverton Art Prize (2022). Selected solo exhibitions include Particles Maze, Lyles & King, New York (2024) Summer Palace, Cob Gallery, London (2023). Selected group exhibitions include Embodied Forms, Thaddeus Ropac, London, UK (2024); BLANK Gallery, Shanghai, China (2023); Machines of Desire, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2022); 180 The Strand, London, UK (2022); Southwark Park Galleries, London, UK (2022); Fold Gallery, London, UK (2020); Beacon, Josh Lilley Gallery, London, UK (2020); Unit 1 Gallery, London, UK (2020). Liang is currently completing her PhD at The Royal College of Art, London.
EDUCATION
2020- Ph.D. in School of Art and Humanity, Royal College of Art, UK
2018 - 2020 MA in Painting, Royal College of Art, UK
2014 - 2018 BA in Fine Art, China Central Academy of Fine Arts, China
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 YaYa Yajie Liang: Focus On, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria
2024 Particles Maze, Lyles & King, New York, US
2023 Summer Palace, Cob Gallery, London, UK
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Tomorrow is Already Behind Us, Lyles & King, New York, US
2025 Cob In Tandem with..., Cob Gallery, London, UK (forthcoming)
2024 Embodied Forms, Thaddeus Ropac, London, UK
2023 Universe 25, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2023 The Dance, Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy
2023 Hysteria, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2023 Sweet Spot, BLANK Gallery, Shanghai, China
2022 Taking A Broom To The Wasps’ Nest, Pictorum Gallery, London, UK
2022 Wilderness of Being, HdM Gallery, London, UK
2022 Distortion & Dissonance, Where’s the frame? Gallery, London, UK
2022 Machines of Desire, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK
2022 The Waverton Art Prize, Boisdale of Bishopsgate, London, UK
2022 Eat Drink Man Woman, 180 The Strand, London, UK
2022 Painting 2020, Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf, London, UK
2022 Unruly Encounters, Southwark Park Gallery, London, UK
2021 Silent and soft, it moistens everything, YuYuan Gallery, Suzhou, China
2020 50/50, Fold Gallery, London, UK
2020 Beacon, Josh Lilley’s Gallery, London, UK
2020 Final, not Over, Unit 1 Gallery, London, UK
2020 RCA2020, Degree Show, online
2020 The Circular Ruins, Hockney Gallery, London, UK
2019 Oh, Dear, Safe House, London, UK
2019 Plastic Tongue, White House, London, UK
2019 Lay with me, Dyson Gallery, London, UK
2019 Reaching for the Horizon I, Courtyard Gallery, London, UK
2018 Work in Process, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2018 CAFA Degree Show, China Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, China
SELECTED ART FAIRS
2025 Independent, Cob Gallery, New York, US (forthcoming)
2023 KIAF, Cob Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
RESIDENCIES
2022 Vannucci Artist Residency in Italy
AWARDS
2022 Shortlist for The Waverton Art Prize