Wang Tiande (b. 1960 in Shanghai) graduated from the Chinese Painting Department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now the China Academy of Art) in 1988 and later obtained his doctoral degree from its Department of Calligraphy. He is currently a professor at the Fudan University in Shanghai.
Celebrated for his revolutionary takes on traditional Chinese art in China and abroad, Wang Tiande is best known for his burned landscapes, consisting of a painted underlayer and an overlayer burned with cigarettes or incense sticks. More recently, he has incorporated into the landscapes rubbings of famous ancient steles from his own collection. In their fusion of the fleeting and the timeless, Wang Tiande’s works meditate on creation and destruction. They are both elegies to the past and celebrations of its present persistence.
