Zhao Yao

Zhao Yao
Born in Sichuan Province, China in 1981 and currently based in Beijing, Zhao Yao is a conceptual artist whose practice seamlessly spans painting, installation, photography, video, and performance, sharply engaging with themes of epistemology, perception, institutional frameworks, and everyday life.

From early on, Zhao developed the A Painting of Thought series—visualizing thought structures through geometric shapes, business-case diagrams, and puzzle-like forms. These works question how intellectual architectures form, disassemble, and reassemble.

In his Spirit Above All series, Zhao physically and spiritually transported large-scale abstract paintings to mountain summits in Tibet, where monks performed blessings—a performance project probing the relationship between religion and modern knowledge, and examining the production of faith and meaning within artistic acts, while highlighting the tension between visual abstraction and social reality.

Since 2020, Zhao's A Few Ordinary Parallel Lines series has used fragile everyday materials—eggshells—to construct a new visual language from subtle variations. Horizontal bands of white or pale gray are composed of broken eggshells collected across China; nutritional data and yolk color information are documented on the reverse side. Created under quarantine and repetitive labor during the COVID-19 pandemic, this series layers delicacy, transience, ritual, discipline, and time.

Throughout his work, Zhao consistently undermines the binary opposition between form and meaning. Abstract patterns and geometric structures intersect with cultural, religious, and political contexts—asking fundamental questions such as "Why do we see certain things as meaningful?" 

Biography
1981 – Born in Sichuan Province, China
2004 – Graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute
Currently based in Beijing

Selected Solo Exhibitions
A Few Ordinary Parallel Lines, Ota Fine Arts, Singapore (2025)
Signals from Heaven, Signals from Heaven, Beijing Commune, Beijing (2018)
The Power of Nature: A Ten Thousand Square Meter Painting in Beijing, Workers Stadium, Beijing (2018)
A Painting of Thought, Pace Gallery, Hong Kong (2015)
Spirit Above All, Pace Gallery, London (2013)
Zhao Yao: I Am Your Night / You Can't See Me, You Can't See Me, Beijing Commune, Beijing (2011–12)
51 m²: 3# Zhao Yao, Taikang Space, Beijing (2010)

Selected Group Exhibitions
Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2019)
Adventures of the Black Square, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015)
Inside China, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014); Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2014)
ON | OFF, UCCA, Beijing (2013)
ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2013)
Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev (2013)
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan (2013)
Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2013)
Fremantle Arts Centre, Australia (2011)
Tate Modern, London

Selected Public Collections
Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France
Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA
White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection, Sydney, Australia
K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China
Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, China
Cc Foundation, Shanghai, China
Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China
BY ART MATTERS, Hangzhou, China