Chinese (Born 1968)
Monumental Figurative Sculpture, Psychological Realism, and Visual Essay
Xiang Jing stands as one of the most iconic, critically revered, and commercially influential sculptors in modern global art history, celebrated for her breathtaking focus on psychological interiority.
Her core philosophy centers on the human body—particularly the female form—as a profound battleground for identity, vulnerability, social conditioning, and internal spiritual strength.
Rejecting the idealized, sexualized depictions of women often found in historical art, Xiang Jing uses her lifelike, monumental figures to confront the raw, unvarnished truth of the modern human condition, capturing moments of deep solitude and fierce resilience.
Xiang Jing works across an immense physical scale, creating lifelike and monumental figures out of painted fiberglass, plaster, and bronze.
Her studio process is exhausting and highly technical, beginning with intricate clay modeling to capture hyper-detailed human expressions, muscle tension, and skin textures before casting the final form.
She then meticulously hand-paints each sculpture with subtle, muted skin tones, giving the heavy fiberglass material an uncanny, soft quality that makes her figures appear as though they are holding a real breath.
Graduating from the elite Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), her stellar career has been marked by massive, historic retrospective exhibitions that have toured the most prestigious contemporary art museums across Asia and Europe.
Her defining masterwork series, most notably the deeply influential collections Your Body and Will Things Ever Get Better?, shattered attendance records and triggered major global art-world debates on the nature of the female gaze in sculpture.
Her works are proudly held in paramount public museum collections, securing her legacy as a definitive master of figurative realism.
Solo exhibitions
2026 — Hafnia Foundation, Aarhus
2024 — Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
2022 — Power Station of Art, Shanghai
2020 — National Gallery, Reykjavík
Group exhibitions
2025 — 60th Venice Biennale
2023 — Sharjah Biennial 15
2021 — Yokohama Triennale
Public collections
MoMA · Tate Modern · Centre Pompidou ·
M+ Hong Kong · Astrup Fearnley