Zhiqian Wang (b. 1999) is a Chinese-born interdisciplinary artist who works with traditional Gongbi and Shanshui painting, Super 8 and 16mm film, and conceptual-based installation. Her current practice centers on exploring the limitations and potential of ordinary language, science, knowledge, logic, and rationality, among other themes. She plays with language, signs, narrative, and structures proposed in contemporary physics, viewing conceptual art as a way to expand and examine our conceptual understanding of material reality.
Some of her work investigates the status of the multiverse and regions causally disconnected from us, exploring their relationship to our epistemology--whether we can know about them and what their existence would mean for us. Certain pieces investigate randomness and chaotic systems-- including pseudo-randomness and true randomness--and their implications for free will or its absence. In some of her experimental films, she investigates the relationship between image, language and meanings. Despite focusing on theoretical research, she works with mediums that demand intensive effort. For instance, she spends hundreds of hours on single paintings, employing the repetitive processes and meticulous detail characteristic of traditional Chinese Gongbi techniques.
Zhiqian recently had solo shows: “Twins, Twilight, and Apple Tree”, “Moonlight of the Twins”, “Red or White Roses” and “Earth and Jerry”, and a two-person show: "Capital Investigation." Her works have also been shown at The Jewish Museum, Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum, ACT at MIT, and Harvard Medical School. Her AI films were shown internationally, including OSCARS®-Qualifying film festival. She was invited as a guest lecturer in the theoretical computer science department at Harvard University and has collaborated with scholars and researchers in different fields of science. She currently lives and works in New York City.