Ling Jian: Between Figure and Fracture

Eli Klein Gallery is pleased to present Ling Jian: Between Figure and Fracture, the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition traces Ling’s ongoing inquiry into the convergence of realism and surrealism, the fragility of the human spirit, and the estrangement of our digital age.

Ling Jian is among the most technically accomplished and conceptually distinctive painters to emerge from the first internationally recognized generation of Chinese contemporary artists. Working primarily in oil on canvas, Ling combines traditional Chinese motifs with contemporary forms, using flowing blood-vessel patterns in cinnabar—a pigment symbolizing life force and spiritual energy—and precise gongbi brushwork to bridge tradition and innovation.

Ling Jian’s practice can be understood as a ritual invocation of the human spirit. Ling Jian’s paintings transform anxiety, tension, and uncertainty into a vivid visual language. On canvas, Ling Jian manifests fragmentation as well as reconstruction, allowing the surreal and the real to coexist and give rise to new virtualities.