WANG TIANDE 王天德
EXPO Chicago 2026 | April 9 – 12, 2026
QUALIA CONTEMPORARY ART
WANG TIANDE 王天德
b.1960, Shanghai, China
Lives and works in Shanghai, China
Wang Tiande is one of the leading figures in contemporary ink, an artist who has built his practice by testing how far the languages of calligraphy and landscape can be transformed without severing their connection to history. Intervening upon the material surface itself, he layers sheets of xuan paper atop one another, inscribes the lower sheet with calligraphy or landscape imagery in ink, and burns the transparent upper sheet with incense. The act of burning is integral to the work aesthetically, materially, and spiritually. It introduces irreversible destruction while producing an effect of disappearing cultural memory, in which forms are at once revealed, obscured, and partially consumed. The incense itself carries resonances of Buddhist and Daoist ritual, linking image-making to practices of devotion, remembrance, and release.
Wang’s best-known works emerge through a process that is at once precise and violent. After he became interested in the formal possibilities of the burn mark in the early 2000s, he developed a signature method in which incense functions almost as a second brush. The resulting landscapes and calligraphic inscriptions are never simply painted or written; they are seared into being through perforation, shadow, and partial concealment. Ink and fire make unlikely collaborators, producing images that hover between presence and absence, legibility and erasure. What appears is less a stable picture than a suspended afterimage, shaped equally by what remains and what has been lost.
Burning passes it through another material state, turning landscape, writing, and memory into something fragile, spectral, and newly contemporary. By paper puncturing, and translucent, Wang gives cultural memory a physical form, transmitted through damage, residue, and afterimage.
Hermit Tao’s Hut in the Snowy Mountain Vista 陶庐登雪图, 2022
Xuan paper, ink, burn marks, high-resolution calligraphy scan
34 x 29 in | 86.36 x 139.7 cm
WANG TIANDE 王天德
Boundless, 2021
Xuan Paper, Ink and burn marks
120 x 32 in | 304.8 x 81.28 cm
WANG TIANDE 王天德
EXPO Chicago 2026 | April 9 – 12, 2026
Farther and Farther Away 越走越远, 2022
Xuan paper, ink, burn marks, rubbing
28.7 x 34.7 in | 72.9 x 88 cm
WANG TIANDE 王天德
A Cliff Encircled by Layers of Drifting Clouds 百丈烟叠图, 2022
Xuan paper, ink, burn marks, high-resolution calligraphy scan
70.5 x 46.25 in | 179.07 x 117.475
WANG TIANDE 王天德
Along the Shallow River into the Horizon 浅江平远图, 2024
Xuan paper, ink, burn marks, rubbing
17.75 x 74 in | 45.085 x 187.96 cm
24.5 x 81.63 x 2.25 in | 62.23 x 207.34 x 5.7 cm (Framed)
WANG TIANDE 王天德
Detail: WANG TIANDE 王天德, Along the Shallow River into the Horizon 浅江平远图, 2024
Rolling Mountains after the Snow 漫山雪霁图, 2023
Xuan paper, ink, burn marks, high-resolution calligraphy scan
13 x 69.5 in | 33 x 176.5 cm
WANG TIANDE 王天德
Detail: WANG TIANDE 王天德, Rolling Mountains after the Snow 漫山雪霁图, 2023
WANG TIANDE 王天德
b. 1960, Shanghai, China; lives and works in Shanghai, China
Selected Public Collections
British Museum, London, UK
Cernuschi Museum, Paris, France
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, USA
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, USA
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME, USA
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada
Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Chinese Painting Research Institute, Beijing, China
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
JPMorgan Collection
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2026
Wang Tiande: Beyond Reach, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA
2025
Wang Tiande: Mirror Impressions, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
2024
Afterwards: Wang Tiande Art Exhibition, Xu Wei Art Museum, Shaoxing, China 2023
Further Along, Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Hills, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, China
2021
Wang Tiande: Three Floors, WS Space, Shanghai, China
2018
Awaiting: New Works by Wang Tiande, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
From the Canglang Pavilion, Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum, Suzhou, China
WANG TIANDE 王天德
b. 1960, Shanghai, China; lives and works in Shanghai, China
Selected Solo Exhibitions (cont.)
2017
Over Mountains and Across Valleys, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China 2015
Wang Tiande Art Exhibition, The Palace Museum, Beijing, China 2014
Mountainscapes: New Ink Art by Wang Tiande, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
Conversation, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Hou Shan, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China 2012
Gu Shan, Sanshang Art, Hangzhou, China 2011
Boat, Galerie 99, Aschaffenburg, Germany 2009
Up/Down: Wang Tiande Art Project, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA 2007
Made by Wang Tiande II, Chambers Fine Art, New York, NY, USA
Landscape Transformations, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong 2005
Redolent of Incense, Yishu Space, Vancouver, Canada 2003
Wang Tiande: Ink for the 21st Century, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong 1996
Fudan University Museum, Shanghai, China 1995
The German Centre, Shanghai, China 1991
Chinese Painting Institute, Shanghai, China
Selected Group Exhibitions / Institutional Presentations
2026
Art Basel Hong Kong, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
2025–2026
Inspired by the Sign: Contemporary Visions of Epigraphy, Cernuschi Museum, Paris, France
Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation, China Institute Gallery, New York, NY, USA 2025
Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
WANG TIANDE 王天德
b. 1960, Shanghai, China; lives and works in Shanghai, China
Selected Group Exhibitions / Institutional Presentations (cont.)
Art Personalised: Masterpieces from the HKMoA (Phase IV), Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong Tradition Transformed, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
Forty Years of Contemporary Ink in China 1985–2024, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, China; Xinjiang Art Museum, Urumqi, China 2024–2025
The Journey of Ink: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Paintings from the Musée Cernuschi, Bund One Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2024
Word Play: New York, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA
Themes and Variations, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA
The Evolutionary Trace of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China 2023
Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions, Asia Society Texas, Houston, TX, USA
Chengdu Biennale: Time Gravity, Chengdu Art Museum, Chengdu, China
Ink Alchemy: Beyond Tradition, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
Beyond Tradition: The Metamorphosis of Chinese Art, Alisan Fine Arts at Cromwell Place, London, UK 2022
Beyond Ink, Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto, CA, USA 2021
Ink Dreams: Selections from the Fondation INK Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA Dreaming Together, New-York Historical Society, New York, NY, USA 2019
Arts of China: New Acquisitions, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, USA 2018
Ink Worlds: Contemporary Chinese Painting from the Collection of Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA 2013–2014
Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA 2006
Brush and Ink: The Chinese Art of Writing, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA 1998
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, PS1, New York, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, USA; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Monterrey, Mexico; Canberra National Art Museum, Canberra, Australia; Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
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.
