YaYa Yajie Liang Chinese, b. 1995
b. 1995 Henan, China. Lives and works in London, UK.
YaYa Yajie Liang’s work explores the metamorphosis of the body itself and the potential of becoming animal. From the legendary banished beast to the interpenetration of biological space and represented space with body, Liang interrogates how humans’ analogic mapping to and from animals (within imagined, lived, or taxonomic intimacies) casts a trans light back on the human to help us reconsider the prescribed definition of ‘humanity’, and bleeds ‘animality’, the ‘stuff’ of animal nature that sticks to animals in zombie humanism, back onto the humanness’s texture.
Taking inspiration from Agential Realism, Liang views painting as a movement that is constantly repeating the ‘becoming’. Shifting restlessly between abstract and figurative modes, she uses improvisation to kick-start new paintings, allowing unplanned initial strokes to help dictate the works’ subsequent direction. With the collapse of a single central system of representation, the unruly encounter between diverse centres, superimposed perspectives, coexisting moments, and materials are produced and reshaped in the process of painting. Taking the risk of implanting harm, Liang intensively invests in the agency of inanimate material. By transforming paint into flesh, her painting interrogates the cracks within the specific binary of animate and inanimate.
YaYa Yajie Liang (b. 1995, Henan, China. Lives and works in London, UK) has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria; Lyles & King, New York, US and Cob Gallery, London, UK. Liang’s work has been curated in group exhibitions at Thaddeus Ropac, London, UK; BLANK Gallery, Shanghai, China; Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK; 180 The Strand, London, UK; Southwark Park Galleries, London, UK; Fold Gallery, London, UK; Josh Lilley Gallery, London, UK; Unit 1 Gallery, London, UK. In 2022 YaYa Yajie Liang was shortlisted for The Waverton Art Prize. Liang is currently completing her PhD at The Royal College of Art, London.
EDUCATION
2020- Ph.D. in School of Arts and Humanities, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2018 - 2020 MA in Painting, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2014 - 2018 BA in Fine Art, China Central Academy of Fine Arts, China
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 YaYa Yajie Liang: Focus On, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria
2024 Particles Maze, Lyles & King, New York, US
2023 Summer Palace, Cob Gallery, London, UK
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Tomorrow is Already Behind Us, Lyles & King, New York, US
2024 Embodied Forms, Thaddeus Ropac, London, UK
2023 Universe 25, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2023 The Dance, Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy
2023 Hysteria, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2023 Sweet Spot, BLANK Gallery, Shanghai, China
2022 Taking A Broom To The Wasps’ Nest, Pictorum Gallery, London, UK
2022 Wilderness of Being, HdM Gallery, London, UK
2022 Distortion & Dissonance, Where’s the frame? Gallery, London, UK
2022 Machines of Desire, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK
2022 The Waverton Art Prize, Boisdale of Bishopsgate, London, UK
2022 Eat Drink Man Woman, 180 The Strand, London, UK
2022 Painting 2020, Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf, London, UK
2022 Unruly Encounters, Southwark Park Gallery, London, UK
2021 Silent and soft, it moistens everything, YuYuan Gallery, Suzhou, China
2020 50/50, Fold Gallery, London, UK
2020 Beacon, Josh Lilley’s Gallery, London, UK
2020 Final, not Over, Unit 1 Gallery, London, UK
2020 RCA2020, Degree Show, online
2020 The Circular Ruins, Hockney Gallery, London, UK
2019 Oh, Dear, Safe House, London, UK
2019 Plastic Tongue, White House, London, UK
2019 Lay with me, Dyson Gallery, London, UK
2019 Reaching for the Horizon I, Courtyard Gallery, London, UK
2018 Work in Process, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2018 CAFA Degree Show, China Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, China
SELECTED ART FAIRS
2025 NADA, Cob Gallery, New York, US (forthcoming)
2023 KIAF, Cob Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
RESIDENCIES
2022 Vannucci Artist Residency in Italy
AWARDS
2022 Shortlist for The Waverton Art Prize
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YaYa Yajie LiangMy bones are branches of the stars, where dust spirals outward from within. I curl like ancient oracle bone script, quietly forming the shape of water in the belly of the carp’s migration. When my eyelids close, all the inverted wheat begins to rain, and , 2025Oil on canvas180 x 220 cm
70 7/8 x 86 5/8 in -
YaYa Yajie LiangThe House of the Weaver: Overture, 2025Water colour, ink on traditional Chinese rice paper and Indian cotton paperPaper Size: 41 x 30 cm
Frame Size: 49 x 37.5 cm -
YaYa Yajie LiangThe Writing of Stone, 2025Oil on canvas100 x 100 cm
39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in -
YaYa Yajie LiangNo night can lull me into slumber, no dawn can wake me up, 2023Oil and acrylic on canvas200 x 150 x 4 cm
78 3/4 x 59 x 1 5/8 in -
YaYa Yajie LiangEchoes from a distant land III, 2023Watercolour, ink, acrylic and oil on Chinese rice paperFramed: 74.5 x 142 cm
29 3/8 x 55 7/8 in
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Nada, New York, 2025
YaYa Yajie Liang 7 - 11 May 2025Booth: A105 The Starrett-Lehigh Building 601 W 26th Street, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10001 Cob is proud to present a new body of work by Chinese artist YaYa Yajie...Read more -
Kiaf, Seoul, 2023
Diane Chappalley | YaYa Yajie Liang | Larissa Lockshin 6 - 10 Sep 2023Cob is pleased to announce its participation in Kiaf Seoul in South Korea this coming September; presenting works by Diane Chappalley (b. 1991, Switzerland), YaYa Yajie Liang (b. 1995, China)...Read more
2025 Art Cube, Top 8 Discoveries at NADA NY
2025 Art Viewer, Fairs: NADA New York 2025
2025 Whitewall, NADA NY: New Voices & New Visions As The Fair Returns To New York For It's 11th Edition
2025 Hyperallergic, Sculptures Steal The Spotlight At NADA New York
2025 Issue 04: Desire, The Debutante
2023 Interview with YaYa Yajie Liang, London Paint Club