JIANG Ji’an was born in 1967 in Yantai, Shandong Province. Jiang is an inheritor of Claborate-style Painting and also a representative figure in the Neo Claborate-style painting. His artworks are not bounded by tradition and his unique approaches differentiate him from the past claborate-style artists. Jiang Ji’an’s art can be summed up as a form of representation in which he reflects upon the system of representation itself, representing modes of re-presentation as its re-presentational content. In each phase of his art practice, which has gradually expanded its scope from the early 90s all the way to the present, the artist highlights the issue of re-presentation through specific examples, generating a cogitative dimension through intuitive visual experience.

As the first artist to propose the concept of “readymade painting” in the Chinese Contemporary art scene, Jiang Ji’an follows the style of “selflessness” in the classical principle of “seeing from the perspective of object”. The artist’s early years in researching folk art resulted in his delicate and acute insight. The materials for “readymade painting” all came from daily objects. In passing on the painting traditions, Jiang not only preserved the painting method but also investigated issues as regards paintings in the era of digital technology. In his Silk series and Tea series, the artist deconstructed the readymades and re-presented them in a painterly style. The Eastern aesthetics of “correspondence to object” has reflected in Jiang Ji’an’s artworks in the past decade. The aim was to recreate a “system of everyday art” in the traditional sense. Jiang tends to favor the interaction between viewers and the works. In Two Room Flat, the artist placed the issue of painting onto the readymade objects and the delusionary space and eventually formed a reverse thinking. Through light and silhouette in between the real and the illusory, the artist questioned the reality. Jiang’s artworks have explored the various possibilities in contemporary art; as a result, Jiang Ji’an’s art is a sensory introspection and self-referent in ideas, comprehending “reality” as an existing system and thus remaining in a state of uncertainty.

Jiang’s artworks were collected by institutions including New York Newark Museum, Busan Culture Centre, Macao Museum of Art and CAFA Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum (Beijing).