毕蓉蓉 Bi Rongrong

Bi Rongrong, born in 1982 in Ningbo, currently lives and works in Shanghai. She received her MA in Chinese Traditional Landscape Painting at Sichuan University in 2008, followed by an MFA in Painting from the Frank Mohr Institute in the Netherlands. In 2022, Bi Rongrong was one of the three global winners of the Spirit of Ecstasy Challenge in Muse, the Rolls-Royce Arts Programme; in 2024, Bi Rongrong was one of the six winners for the“Sigg Prize 2025”at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong.

In recent years, Bi Rongrong has been visiting different cities through residencies and other trips, observing and recording them from a personal perspective. The main method is to collect and extract "patterns" from local natural landscapes, architecture, street posters, or surfaces of everyday objects. These patterns are like the skin of different cities and cultures, and become fragments of the artist's personal memory. As creative materials, they reconstruct layers of intertwined space and time and landscapes, as well as the situations, emotions, stories, and imaginations of the artist's real experiences.

For Bi Rongrong, the process of constructing these materials can be described as "weaving". Through drawing, painting, traditional hand weaving, machine knitting/weaving, animation, and spatial installations, she is constantly searching for new methods to give different materials new and organic connections, and to incorporate her own understanding of different materials into them. "Weaving" is a creative process, which is both a homogeneous process of treating materials as "threads" and a liberating process of making them reveal possibilities beyond their original meanings. The contradiction between the two involves the artist's reflection on the relationship between the environment and the self, as well as her exploration of the new extensibilities of fragmented visual information.

Her works have been exhibited in various art institutions, biennials and festivals, including CHAT Centre for Heritage Arts & Textile (Hong Kong), Shanghai Museum of Glass, K11, Shanghai Pearl Art Museum, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Zhejiang Art Museum, Sifang Art Museum (Nanjing), Cass Sculpture Foundation (UK), A Thousand Plateaus Art Space (Chengdu), Perrotin (Shanghai), Vanguard Gallery (Shanghai), Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, etc.

毕蓉蓉的 “小说景观”是一组由不同媒介的作品及其相互关系组成的整体，主要由编织，绘画，以及装置三部分构成。她以自己在世界不同城市的经历为基础，从视觉感受出发，在无数的景观中选择了一些抽象化的符号，例如一幅风景的细节，一个建筑的形状，或者大街上转瞬即逝的残像所留下的色块……她将这些符号当作中国古典山水画中的笔触：首先，和笔触一样，它们也能暗示出作者的内心感受，视觉节奏，以及最为重要的，生命体验的整体记忆在下笔的一瞬间所流露的痕迹。其次，在编织，绘画，和装置作品中，这些“笔触”并不像古典山水那样的直接描绘，而是经过了手工制作的转换。于是，由内在到形式的传递通道也发生了改变，才反映出在当下的生活和内心体验。最后，她也将城市景观当作自然风景去处理，这不是一种直接描绘山水的逃避，而是来自于对当下时代身份的接受——这种接受是真正理解古代山水画所代表的，自然智慧的基础和关键。最终，毕蓉蓉的作品所构成的整体，既是她个体经验的一次升华，也为这个时代提供了一种年轻的，却又与过去相连接的感知方式。