Wang Lei

Art Brokerage: Wang Lei Chinese Artist: b. 1980. Wang Lei was born in 1980 in Henan, China. He is best known for his practice of ‘knitting' sculptures from strips of paper twisted into yarn. He was awarded an MFA in Arts from the Department of Experimental Art of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2010. Wang Lei thought he was entering the Folk Art Department at CAFA, but much to his initial dismay it had already become the Experimental Art Department, with a radical curriculum restructure that married investigations of folk art tradition – requiring students to do fieldwork in rural areas – with cutting edge contemporary art practices. He credits the innovative work of artists such as Huang Yongping, Xu Bing and Cai Guo-Qiang, and his professor Lü Shengzhong, as profoundly influential. Following in their footsteps, younger artists began to explore the possibilities of combining Chinese traditional forms, ranging from papercuts and embroidery to unusual paper techniques, with international contemporary art conventions such as installation. Wang Lei became particularly interested in paper, literally knitting meaning and metaphor into his material practice. His work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Listings wanted.