He Gong

Born in 1955 in Chongqing, China

Obtained a master’s degree from Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1985

Went to the United States in 1986

2005-2021, Professor of Art, Sichuan University.

Currently lives and works in Chengdu and Los Angeles

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2019 Out of Place – Solo Exhibition of He Gong’s Works, Shanghai Himalayas Art Museum, Shanghai, China

2015 Return of the Exiles – He Gong’s Solo Exhibition, Yushanghe Mei Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2011 Migrant Bird Project – Solo Exhibition of He Gong’s Works, San Francisco Henry Koo Art Fund, San Francisco, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 Chengdu Biennale – Super Fusion, Chengdu, China

2020 Being of Life, Mesa Art Museum, Mesa, USA

2019 Shared Myth – The Second Anren Biennale, OCT Center for Contemporary Art (OCAT), Chengdu, China

2017 Today’s Past – Anren Biennale, Qiaocheng Center for Contemporary Art (OCAT), Chengdu, China

2013 Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, UK

2013 Parallel Exhibition of the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

During the Cultural Revolution, He Gong was sent to the countryside for seven years to do manual labor. That experience, he says, “made me realize the true condition of China” and ignited his hatred of ideology and political control. In the mid-1980s he went to the United States to study—ironically, one of the first Chinese artists to do so with government support. It was a turning point: for the first time he was free to choose what he wanted to do. One day he came across an old railway station, preserved intact for a century. “It was all black and grey with age. It took me back to the past. It was like going back to the origin of things,” he recalls. At that moment, he decided to abandon the use of color: “Black and white represents the original state of being. It’s about dream and reality, contradiction and conflict.” His series The Occasion recaptures his memories of that vision in four huge paintings, each more than two meters square and covered with cobweb-like meshes of brushstrokes. Close up, the canvas looks chaotic, yet with distance recognizable forms emerge. When monochrome became trendy, He Gong began using color again. He Gong was born in 1955, Chongqing. He now lives and works in Chengdu, Sichuan, China & Frazer Park, California, USA.