Cui Jie

(b. 1983, Shanghai)

Cui Jie is best known for her ambitious architectural paintings, characterized by a distinctly fractured, multi-perspectival and non-linear aesthetic. She is described by The Wall Street Journal as one of the youngest "China's Rising Art Stars."

Born in 1983, she is a typical member of China's "Post-80s" generation. Her early works questioned the truth in reality through the unconventional combination of images on canvas. Later, by groups of new paintings, she shifted her style from the previous one to the study of forms and figure-ground relationship. In these paintings, she pays much attention to and magnifies the architectural details of structures, buildings and landscape, using the idea of fragments and layers so as to convey a sense of alienation.

She is greatly inspired by Orson Welles multifaceted perspective which is evident through her application of various metaphorical image layers, each composed of imaginary and realistic scenes on canvas. Every layer is meticulously executed exposing art-historical moments and sculptural impastos to represent the transformation of China's urban landscape over the course of the last century.

Cui Jie's works have been exhibited worldwide, including at The 4th Prague Biennale (2009), “Poetic Realism: An Reinterpretation of Jiangnan—Contemporary Art from South China” (Madrid, 2008), “Notes of Conception” (Beijing, 2008). She is profiled in the December/January 2015 issue of Surface Magazine.