About
Qian Qian (b.1990)
As a visual artist, poet, and mother, I explore the physical and spiritual transformation of the body alongside the rhetorical function of technology, through paintings and interactive installations.
I push the material boundaries of watercolor, developing a technique that allows organic erosions and intricate textures to emerge. Building on Max Ernst’s concept of ‘controlled chance,’ I embrace the interplay of chaos and precision. I prepare my works on archival boards with UV spray and acrylic varnish, making them water-resistant while preserving the luminous transparency of watercolor and achieving the rich texture and resilience of oil painting.
Transitioning from my watercolor series Portals to the Past to my oil-on-linen series The Field, I experiment with a unique technique that adapts watercolor methods to oil painting, using water-based oils and ink washes with a vivid palette. This approach carries over the fluidity and organic textural qualities of my watercolor practice, allowing similar intricate erosions to emerge in oil.
I make works of "ecomythicism," a re-envisioned ecosystem through which I examine the fluid transmigration of the body from fixed material form into energy, memory, and information.Through technology, we reshape the world into an interconnected, enchanted space, echoing Erik Davis’s exploration of digital mysticism in TechGnosis—a transformation that ultimately redefines our existence. Recurrent motifs—hybrid portraits, vortexes, atoms, precise geometric structures, and symbolic imagery—appear throughout my paintings. By placing these poetically reconstructed elements against ethereal backgrounds, I invite a reconsideration of perception, challenging existing ways of seeing.
Drawing from a fusion of cross-cultural references,both fictional and non-fictional, I merge Zen Buddhism, alchemy, and contemporary philosophy—Gaia theory, Roger Penrose’s quantum consciousness and Alan Watts’s Eastern thought and Italo Calvino’s Cosmoscomics—to construct a distinct visual language. This intersection of ideas shapes a contemporary narrative that explores the duality of the spiritual and material through mythopoetic sci-fi imagery. Balancing chaos and control, I reveal the tension between the ethereal and the tangible.
Guided by Heidegger’s view of technology as a mode of revealing and the Taoist perspective of technology as a vessel for navigating nature—ideas further explored in Yuk Hui’s theory of cosmotechnics—I encode these ideas into my painted altars, integrating textures as carriers of meaning. Extending this exploration, I created the interactive installation People Should Listen to the Birds’ Flight, incorporating ceramics and digital interfaces to foster immersive experiences, inclusive dialogues, and playful interactions.
The installation featured field recordings from my daily life, interwoven with bird mythologies from different cultures, transforming personal moments into an expanded, collective sonic experience. Displayed in braille, it encouraged tactile engagement, inviting visitors to touch and release the sounds, creating a dynamic interplay between presence and memory. By emphasizing non-visual modes of perception, the work challenged conventional ways of engaging with art, fostering a deeper attunement to the unseen and the unheard. It explored the ways in which technology—rather than distancing us from nature—can serve as a medium for re-enchantment, reconnecting us to rhythms and signals beyond the human register.
Exploring surrealist themes of consciousness and the subconscious, I weave scientific inquiry into a contemporary myth, tracing my own spiritual journey.
Biography:
Her past solo exhibitions include: “Portals To The Past”,Lychee One (2024); Duo Solo “In Her Landscape”, Lychee One (2023); “Metempsychosis”, Richard Saltoun Online Gallery (2023); group exhibitions include:2025 - “La Mariposa”, Soho Revue, London; 2024 - A Poem Lovely as a Tree, Sixi Museum, Nanjing; Supercommunity, Tank Shanghai; Unweave A Rainbow, Madein Gallery, Shanghai; 10 Year Anniversary, Lychee One, London; At Daybreak, Ignition Project, London; DISEMBODIED, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles; Ode to the Unexpected, Madein Gallery, Shanghai; 2023 - Come Closer, Indigo+Madder, London; X Museum Triennial; Mother Art Prize, Zabludowicz Collection; “Embryos”, West Norwood Project Space (2020); Syncopes, Mimosa House (2021); FBA Futures, Mall Galleries (2019); Lodger, Westminster Library (2017); ...And To Dust All Return, Unna Way, Huddersfield (2016). She is the recipient of the 2023 Mother Art Prize Online Award and was shortlisted for FBA Futures in 2019. Qian Qian now lives and works in London.
Her works are included in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Collection, Marcelle Joseph Collection, Michael Weissman Collection and other collections.
Contact: ivyivymuami@gmail.com