XING Danwen (???) (Born 1967)

Xing Danwen started with painting at the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in her hometown, and continued at the Central academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Later in 1998, she went to New York with a fellowship and grant received from Asian Cultural Council in New York. There she received a Master degree of fine art in photography and multimedia from School of Visual Arts in New York. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Xing Danwen is one of the rare internationally recognized women among the Chinese contemporary artists.

Her particular works - a strong and sensitive view on the society - has been noticed for more ten years through her exhibitions around the globe. In her most recent work “Urban Fiction”, Xing Danwen photographs the maquettes of the new architecture in China and the modern urban landscape with their disproportion, their dehumanized aspect, sometimes with their grotesque lights and colors. With this stratagem, Xing Danwen attracts our attention on the consequences this important upheaval the China urban universe is currently subjected to: the disappearance of the inheritance and the references to the former generations, this new world of cold buildings where the human appears terribly ridiculous and alone. In another series of her works, disCONNEXION, the artist shows large piles of computer trashes, criticizing the consumer society and environment nightmares, but succeeding to extract a kind of beauty from these residues.

(credit: http://www.galeriepieceunique.com/infoframes/danwen.htm)