WANG DONGLING 王冬龄
EXPO Chicago 2026 | April 9 – 12, 2026
WANG DONGLING 王冬龄
b. 1945, Rudong, Jiangsu, China
Lives and works in Hangzhou, China
Wang Dongling is one of China’s most celebrated living calligraphers and ink artists, known for pushing calligraphy beyond legibility and into the realms of painting, performance, and abstraction. The works on view come from his Chaos Script series, in which overlapping Chinese characters dissolve into sweeping fields of movement and rhythm Unconstrained lines swirl across the surface like wind, water, rain, or tangled plant forms, transforming writing into image, gesture, and atmosphere.
Classically trained and long associated with the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he taught for decades and helped shape the discourse around modern calligraphy, Wang emerged as a major figue in experimental ink from the 1980s onward. His practice begins in deep command of historical script traditions, but pushes them toward an expanded form in which writing becomes bodily, immersive, and spatial. Reinterpreting calligraphy through both performance and abstraction, Wang treats the brushstroke as a record of movement, pressure, and force. In these works, script is no longer primarily a vehicle for semantic meaning, but a charged field of rhythm, energy, and form.
WANG DONGLING 王冬龄
Flower in the Mirror, Moon on the Water 镜花水月, 2025
Ink on xuan paper
21 5/8 x 21 5/8 in | 55 x 55 cm
WANG DONGLING 王冬龄
Yan Shu’s Words in Chaos Script 晏殊词乱书, 2016
Ink on xuan paper
29 1/2 x 31 1/2 in | 75 x 80 cm
WANG DONGLING 王冬龄
Lao Zi, (Tao Te Ching) Chapter 10 老子道德经, 2025
Ink on paper
17 3/8 x 26 3/8 in | 44 x 67 cm
WANG DONGLING
b.1945, Rudong, Jiangsu, China; lives and works in Hangzhou, China
Selected Public Collections
British Museum, London, UK
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, USA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, USA
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
National Library of China, Beijing, China
China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
Zhejiang Museum of Fine Art, Hangzhou, China
Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024
Flying Flowers and Scattered Snow: A Performance of Calligraphy by Wang Dongling, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, Pilgrim to Tianjin: Wang Dongling’s Calligraphy Works, Tianjin Art Museum, Tianjin, China
The Joy of Being, iPreciation, Singapore 2023
Wang Dongling: Ink.Space.Time, The Heong Gallery, Downing College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Wang Dongling: Entangled Energies, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong
2021
From Inception: Wang Dongling 60 Years of Calligraphy, Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, China 2020
THE WAY, iPreciation, Singapore 2019
Wang Dongling: Ink in Motion, Asia Society, New York, NY, USA 2018
Wang Dongling: Poetry and Painting, Chambers Fine Art, New York, NY, USA 2017
Poetic Rainbow: The Calligraphy of Wang Dongling, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong
Wang Dongling: The Bamboo Path, OCAT, Shenzhen, China
2016
Between Heaven and Heart, Imperial Ancestral Temple Art Museum, Beijing, China
Wang Dongling: Writing Chaos, INK Studio, Beijing, China
Wang Dongling: Contemporary Calligraphy, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand 2015
Wang Dongling: New Work, Chambers Fine Art, New York, NY, USA
WANG DONGLING
b. 1945, Rudong, Jiangsu, China; lives and works in Hangzhou, China
Selected Solo Exhibitions(cont.)
2014
The Moon over the River on a Spring Night: The Art of Calligraphy by Wang Dongling, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong 2013
Wang Dongling: The Origins of Abstraction, INK Studio, Beijing, China
Wang Dongling: Brushing the Tides, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong 2011
Wang Dongling: The Daoism of Calligraphy, Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, China 2007
Share the Peripateticism: Calligraphy Exhibition by Wang Dongling, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China 2001
It Is Not Calligraphy, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA
Selected Group Exhibitions / Museum Presentations
2025
Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Foundation INK Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Journey from the Wilderness: Contemporary Chinese Character Art Exhibition, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China 2024
Forty Years of Contemporary Ink in China 1985–2024, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, China; Xinjiang Art Museum, Urumqi, China
Word Play: New York, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA 2024
Word Play, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong 2023
Chengdu Biennial: Time Gravity, Chengdu Art Museum, Chengdu, China 2023
Global INK: INK Studio’s Ten Year Anniversary Exhibition, INK Studio, Beijing, China 2023
Kunming Art Biennale: Writing and Boundary, Yunnan Art Museum, Kunming, China 2022–2023
From Dawn to Dusk: Life in the Forbidden City, Hong Kong Palace Museum, Hong Kong 2021
Ink Dreams: Selections from the Fondation INK Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA 2018
New Ink Art in China 1978–2018, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China 2018
Ink Worlds: Contemporary Chinese Painting from the Collection of Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
WANG DONGLING
b. 1945, Rudong, Jiangsu, China; lives and works in Hangzhou, China
Selected Group Exhibitions / Museum Presentations (cont.)
2013–2014
Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
2006
Ink and Brush: The Chinese Art of Writing, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA 1998
Chinese Art and Civilization of Five Thousand Years, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Selected Awards
2012 Fourth Chinese Calligraphy Lanting Award, Art Award
2011 AAC Art China, Most Influential Artist ward, Calligraphy Category
2011 Annual Top Ten Persons in Chinese Calligraphy
2006 Second Chinese Calligraphy Lanting Award, Education Award, First Prize
2005 Annual Top Ten Persons in Chinese Calligraphy
1997 Grand Prix, World Calligraphy of Jeollabuk-do Biennale
QUALIA CONTEMPORARY ART
Praised by renowned art historian Alexander Nemerov as “a hidden gem in Silicon Valley,” Qualia Contemporary Art presents a diverse program of emerging and established artists working across a wide range of media and is dedicated to facilitating dialogue between Asian and international contemporary practices.
Since opening in Fall 2020, the gallery has mounted over 30 exhibitions: highlights from these presentations include the U.S. debuts of Pan Hsinhua, Lyu Peng, and Xu Hongming; local artists like Younhee Paik, Stella Zhang, Nick Dong, and Joe Ferriso; and internationally-recognized artists including Paul DeMarinis, Guillermo Galindo, Yang Jiechang, and Wang Tiande.
The gallery has also collaborated with leading Chinese artists such as Xu Bing, Wang Dongling, Gu Wenda, and Gu Gan, as well as with prominent scholars including Alexander Nemerov, Richard Vinograd, Ouyang Jianghe, and Xie Xiaoze.
