Ce Jian’s work delves into the physicality of bodies and the illusionistic methods used to represent them. Across her paintings, drawings, and installations, she explores the intersection of body and space, navigating between organic growth and technical construction. Drawing from historical pictorial traditions, she reinterprets them within the framework of contemporary digital visual culture. Her work centers on the artificial structure and aesthetics of technologically transformed bodies, whether human figures or objects, employing diverse approaches to highlight their distortion and hybridization.
Ce Jian views painting as a historically rich medium that encodes both knowledge and emotions. She strives for a visual language that reflects the complexity of today’s image-saturated world. Throughout her practice, she underscores painting’s dual nature as both a tangible entity and a virtual window. Within her compositional framework, Ce Jian’s paintings reveal their own physical presence through textured, layered surfaces that combine geometric clarity with expressive gestures, color fields, and delicate drawings.
In her recent works, Ce Jian creates hybrid figures inspired by mythological beasts from European culture. These fantastical creatures are modeled in the likeness of industrial robots, blending technical components with elements drawn from art and natural history. Through fluid metamorphosis, Ce Jian explores the boundaries between the human and non-human, the biological and mechanical. She particularly focuses on the gendered concept of monstrosity, evident in both classical mythology and modern technology, where sphinxes and cyborgs converge as menacing figures characterized by their formidable composite bodies and enigmatic intelligence. The focus on the intersection between history and futurism is a central theme in 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
Belly of the Beast, 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
Tangram, Galerie Herold, Bremen, 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
- 2024
Returning to the Sea, TAG Art Museum, Qingdao, China
Worlds Beyond, Unit London, UK - 2023
From the Other Hill, Guardian Art Center, Beijing, China
Form and Meaning, Yuan Art Museum, Beijing, China
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
Futurism of the Past, 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
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