Ce Jian’s works deal with the physicality of bodies and the illusionism in their representation. She draws on historical pictorial traditions and reformulates them in the context of a contemporary digital visuality. In doing so, she explores the artificial structure and aesthetics of the technically transformed body, be it a human figure or an object, using different approaches to highlight the role of distortion and hybridisation. 

Seeing painting as a historically rich medium in which both knowledge and emotions are encoded, Ce Jian aims for a visual language that reflects the complexity of today’s image worlds. Throughout her practice she emphasises the dual existence of painting as a material body and a virtual window. Set in a compositional framework, her paintings unfold their own physicality through the texture of their layered surface, which combines clear geometry with expressive gestures and colour fields with delicate drawings.

In her recent works Ce Jian creates hybrid figures named after mythological beasts from European culture. The fantastic creatures are modelled on the anatomy of industrial robots, merging the technical components with elements from art history and natural history. With metamorphic fluidity, Ce Jian explores the boundaries between the human and non-human, the biological and mechanical. Her focus lies especially on the gendered concept of monstrosity both in classical mythology and modern technology, where the sphinx and the cyborg meet in their role as threatening (demonic) females, defined by their powerful composite bodies and uncanny intelligence. The connecting arc between history and futurism runs like a constant through her work.

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Ce Jian was born in 1984 in Shandong/China and emigrated to Germany in 1988. She studied fine arts with Georg Baselitz, Daniel Richter and Robert Lucander at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she graduated as Meisterschueler in 2008. She also studied art history, philosophy and East Asian art history at the Humboldt University and Freie Universität Berlin, obtaining a M.A. (Magister Artium) degree in 2009. She received a Ph.D. in art and visual history from the Humboldt University in 2017, with a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

She currently lives and works in Berlin.

Solo Exhibitions 

• 2023 (upcoming)
  White Space, Beijing, China
• 2021
  Paradise, White Space, Beijing, China
• 2019
  Words of Art, Ce Jian & Yuzheng Cheng, Yell Space, Shanghai, China
• 2018
  Armada, White Space, Beijing, China
  On Paper 2, Zapbeijing, Beijing, China
  Bannermen, Gallery SU:, Seoul, Korea
• 2017
  Transeuropa, Ce Jian & Yuzheng Cheng, Whiteconcepts, Berlin, Germany
  CAPTCHA, Philine Cremer Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany
• 2016
  The Grand Illusion, White Space, Beijing, China
  Elephant, NON Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• 2015
  Velum, Philine Cremer Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany
• 2014
  Projection, White Space, Beijing, China
  Frontiers, Philine Cremer Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany
• 2012
  Smile Without A Face, White Space, Beijing, China
  A Maze, Galerija Contra, Koper, Slovenia
• 2011
  The Maker, Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin, Germany
  Models, Galerija Contra, Koper, Slovenia
• 2010
  Fact=Fiction, White Space, Beijing, China
  Marco Polo. A Travel Guide, Andrew James Art, Shanghai, China
• 2009
  1 für ALLE, Läkemäker Gallery, Berlin, Germany
• 2008
  Wie Sie sehen…, Läkemäker Gallery, Berlin, Germany

Selected Group Exhibitions

• 2023
  From Body to Dream, Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
  Painting Unsettled, UCCA Edge, Shanghai, China
• 2022
  The Situation is Excellent, Glue, Berlin, Germany
  Persona and Parasite, White Space, Beijing, China
  The Hearing Trumpet: Part 1, Galerie Marguo, Paris, France
• 2021
  Parallel Universes – Parafacts and Parafictions, designrepublic, Shanghai, China
  Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu, China
  Story, Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, Beijing, China
  Sonderlage, Lage Egal, Berlin, Germany
• 2020
  El Lissitzky’s Rooms, Surplus Space, Wuhan, China
• 2019
  A White Space Odyssey, White Space, Beijing, China
  Kunstraum Berlin, German Embassy, Beijing, Germany
  Yellow Reflection, Galerie Liusa Wang, Paris, France
  The X / Part 1, Whiteconcepts, Berlin, Germany
• 2018
  Art Patrons, Qiao Space, Shanghai, China
  A World in a Grain of Sand, Fosun Foundation Collection, Sanya, China
  Remixing Ground: Deconstructing Damage, La Chapelle de Clairefontaine, France
• 2017
  The Second Self, Peres Projects, Berlin, Germany
  The 6th Art Sanya / Huayu Youth Award 2017, Sanya, China
  On Paper One, Zapbeijing, Beijing, China
  Wanted Duchamps 3, Lage Egal, Berlin, Germany
  I’m not a robot, Ce Jian & Lin Ke, Philine Cremer Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany
• 2016
  Our Painting, Yang Art Museum, Beijing, China
  Painting As Straight Gate, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
  New Capitalism, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu, China
  B-Movie, J:Gallery, Shanghai, China
• 2015
  Saloon, Sexauer Gallery, Berlin, Germany
• 2014
  Painting Lesson IV, Yang Gallery, Beijing, China
• 2013
  Aufwachen! Besser machen!, Kleine Humboldt-Galerie, Berlin, Germany

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Studio Ce Jian
Kurfürstenstraße 15-16
10785 Berlin, Germany

info@cejian.de