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Overview
In a world of constant flux, Ding strives to align with the laws of the formless, penetrating appearances to reach a more profound reality. Through his work, Jingyan Ding seeks to provoke reflection on the relationship between emptiness and substance, reality and simulation, creating a perceptual threshold that feels both familiar and unfamiliar, ultimately leading viewers to question whether the world they inhabit is truly real.
Jingyan Ding (b. 1999, Baicheng, China) currently lives and works in Milan. Jingyan Ding’s work revolves around the impermanence of the self, exploring its transformations and infinite possibilities within the realm of rupa (phenomena, the world of forms). Influenced by Taoist and Buddhist thought, he engages with the notions of the intangible, the formless, impermanence, and infinity, while posing a fundamental question: Are we living in a virtual world?In his work, the tensions between reality and virtuality, presence and absence, first-person and third-person perspectives, as well as seeing and being seen, intertwine to construct a profound exploration of identity, existence, and perception. For him, the self arises from non-self. In an increasingly virtualised era, individuality flows like data, constantly shifting in a state of non-linearity and uncertainty.Primarily working with oil painting, he regards painting as a medium that reveals the invisible through the visible, a visual language that describes a sense of flow, immersing the viewer in a fluctuating, ever-changing self. He sees “emptiness” (wu) as both wisdom and origin. The formless world is not void, but a real and invisible dimension whose energies and laws govern the operations of the visible world. The virtual nature of the tangible is rooted in the more profound truth of the formless.
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Works
Jingyan Ding Chinese, b. 1999
Untitled, 2025Oil on canvas50 x 50 cm
19 3/4 x 19 3/4 inCopyright The ArtistIn this work, Jingyan Ding turns his attention to the reflection of plants on the surface of water, using this fragile image as a metaphor to question the authenticity of...In this work, Jingyan Ding turns his attention to the reflection of plants on the surface of water, using this fragile image as a metaphor to question the authenticity of existence. The reflection hovers between substance and illusion: is what we see a genuine presence, or merely a fleeting mirage? By portraying the indistinct interplay between the plant and its watery counterpart, the work destabilises the viewer’s sense of what is real and what is unreal.
Ding constructs a visual space where the tangible and the intangible, the authentic and the illusory, continuously overlap. The work invites viewers to reflect on whether our perception of reality is grounded in truth, or whether, like a reflection on water, it is always a fragile surface subject to distortion and dissolution.
2of 2BiographyEDUCATION
2023 – PRESENT
- Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture, Academia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan
2022 – 2023
- Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture, Academia di Bella Arti di Bologna, Bologna
2017 – 2021
- Bachelor’s Degree in Animation, Changchun Normal University, Changchun
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
- BONIAN SPACE, Beijing, China, ‘The Edge of Phenomenon’
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
- Contemporary Cluster, Rome, Italy ‘4th Prisma Art Prize’
2024
- No Title gallery, Venice, Italy, ‘We Art Open Worldwide’
2023
- P420 gallery, Bologna, Italy, ‘Le onde’
ART FAIRS
2025
- 5th Edition of ReA, OPOS, Milan, Italy
ExhibitionsContact FormSend me more information on Jingyan Ding
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