Wei
Yuan

Originally from Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, China, Wei Yuan (1984) lived in France for nearly 10 years before settling in Cambridge, UK. Born into a family of doctors, she showed exceptional artistic talent from an early age, studying privately in the studios of Chinese Master painters and attending summer school at the renowned Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), specialising in drawing and painting. Travelling to Grenoble, France, in 2005, she enrolled in the Grenoble School of Fine Art (École supérieure d'Art de Grenoble) in 2006, receiving the Explo'RA Sup of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, a grant for international students, which allowed her to further develop her practice at the Department of Drawing of the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Brussels (Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles) in 2007.

 

While in Brussels, she successfully won a place to study at the prestigious Beaux-Arts de Paris, one of the world's oldest and most influential fine art schools. Via a highly competitive entrance exam which includes written theory, drawing tests, portfolio review and oral interview, the Beaux-Arts de Paris is one of the most selective art schools in the world. 

 

Yuan completed consecutive undergraduate (2010) and graduate (2012) studies at the Beaux-Arts, including the school’s post-diplôme research year focussing on independent work and critical inquiry. She studied under renowned French painter and draughtsman, Philippe Cognée, known for his innovative encaustic techniques and paintings which blur extreme figuration with references to mechanical reproduction in a critique of our technologically infused world. Winner of the Villa Médicis prize (1990) and nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp (2004), Cognée is one of the most recognised artists of his generation. Yuan also studied under renowned theorist Professor Didier Semin, whose influential texts on conceptual art, photography and Art Povera have shaped art historical discourse and curatorial practice internationally. Didier’s influence on Wei Yuan’s practice and thinking is visible in her graduate exhibition ‘Presque Rien’ and final thesis  entitled ‘The semantic content of empty space’ (2012) which mirrors the title of the current exhibition at Cambridge ArtSpace5-7.

 

Her work has been exhibited in Paris, London, Cambridge, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai, as well as other cities, and is held in private and institutional collections internationally.