Qi Yu
Qi Yu (b. 1969, Xiamen, China) is a Chinese contemporary artist known for his distinctive ceramic “paintings” on canvas, where fired porcelain becomes both image and surface. Educated in the Decoration & Design department of the Central Academy of Art and Craft, he lives and works between Beijing and Xiamen, and his practice is deeply informed by China’s porcelain heritage and ink-painting traditions.
Qi Yu’s work rethinks “ceramic” not as a supporting material but as a complete visual language. He constructs wall-based compositions using porcelain fragments and ceramic skin-like planes mounted onto canvas, producing surfaces that read simultaneously as painting, relief, and artifact. His widely recognized FUTU (浮图) series draws on semiotic motifs and cultural memory—often combining ceramic elements (and, in some works, cinnabar) to create fields that feel excavated, coded, and time-worn, as if the image has been unearthed rather than painted.
Conceptually, his approach sits at the intersection of porcelain legacy and ink aesthetics: tonal gradations and atmospheric “ink” effects are translated into mineral, fired matter, giving the works a quiet severity and a tactile, archaeological presence. This material-driven abstraction—neither traditional ceramics nor conventional mixed media—has been presented internationally, including institutional fair programming such as EXPO CHICAGO 2016, where Redbrick Art Museum presented Futu by Qi Yu.
"I have a primitive impulse on the art of ceramics. At the beginning of the creation my experience of the process from mud to ceramics is just like the birth of life. From the clay pottery blending to the symbol capture and the picture description to the surface glazing (like the human skin) it is a process of life. Then into the imperial kiln, refined in fire, we can see the wares like human embryo through the observation window of the kiln, red, transparent, like the image of a baby in type-B ultrasonic. Every piece of work is like the birth of a life when it is out of the kiln. This is a living process - "birth", "life" on the artistic presentation in a conversion of mud, fire, porcelain, thus the significance of the work becomes vivid and full. ..."
Qi Yu, born in 1969, native of Jiangxi province.
Graduated in 1991 from the central Academy of Fine Arts.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 ONE on ONE, Crystal Liu, World Gallery, Hong Kong
2015 Back to the Origination, Deyo J Belt castle, Luxemburg
2014 exhibition in the CERCLE MUNSTER club, Luxemburg,
2013 Back to the origination, China-EU cultural centre,Strasbourg, France Heart-Touch, Oriental Art Collection of Xiamen Museum, China
2012 Elephantine drawing, Yuhedetang art commune in Xiamen, China
2011 Back to the origination - Unknown", Yuhedetang art commune in Xiamen, China
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015 VARIA ARS, Artists Association Exhibition, LOUISE PASSERELLE, Brussels, Belgium
Meditation in Wartime, Sino-Ireland Art Exchange Exhibition, Dongyue Art Museum in Beijing
The Golden Fleece, Sino-Ireland Art Exchange Exhibition, 798 Beijing Art Gallery
Circles, Beijing Yue Art Gallery
2014 Sino-French 50 anniversary of Recognition and Friendship, exhibition featuring 50 Chinese artists, Paris, France
START in situ, International contemporary ceramic art Exhibition in Jinri Art Museum, Beijing, China
Here-meijiang, contemporary artists joint exhibition of Meijiang International Art Gallery in Tianjin
Lot Way—art exhibition of Sino-French artists in Art Museum in Xiamen, to celebrate the 50 anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France
Traceability of Source - the sixth ceramic art exhibition tour in Guan Shanyue Art Gallery, Shenzhen, China
The sixth Asian Art Fair in Yanhuang Art Museum, Beijing
2013 Fifth Asian Art Fair in China International Trade Center, Beijing
The 1+8 - Eastern time, Sin- French artists exchanging exhibition in Yuhedetang art commune in Xiamen, China
Chinese Sculpture Literature Exhibition in the National Grand Theatre, Beijing, China
Chinese first installation art biennale in Beijing Museum of Contemporary Art, and Tianjin Art Museum
2012 The Equifinality—curators art show of Xiangshan Art Museum in Xiangshan Art Museum Beijing
2010 Wisdom, the spiritual way of art exhibition in Xiangshan Art Museum, Beijing, China
First International Contemporary Art Festival in Art District of Jimei in Xiamen, China
First ceramic art exhibition of Xiamen Art Gallery, Xiamen, China
Boundless Prajna—the spiritual way of art exhibition in Baoguo Temple of Mount Emei in Chengdu, China