Yan Xing was born in Chongqing in 1986, currently lives in Los Angeles and Beijing. He graduated from the Oil Painting department of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2009. In the same year, he moved to Beijing and founded Yan Xing Studio. In 2012 Yan Xing won the Chinese Contemporary Art Award for Best Young Artist; that year, he also received a nomination for the Future Generation Art Prize from the Pinchuk Art Centre and Focus on Talents Project from Today Art Museum.

Yan Xing is known for his multi-component, interdisciplinary projects that combine diverse media such as performance, video, photography, installation and painting. Yan Xing has built a complex, compelling body of work that reflects critically on how history is manufactured today. The artist’s projects are often complex and conceptual with the body remaining central to all explorations. His works circulate around large themes such as negativity, resistance, and order, exploring their complex interrelations.