Xie Nanxing (b. 1970, Chongqing, China) lives and works in Beijing and Chengdu, China. Over the past three decades, Xie has developed a singular practice that draws from both Chinese and Western traditions, exploring and expanding the psychological and formal possibilities of figurative painting. He first drew international attention at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999) where he presented a series of quasi-photorealist self-portraits and male nudes in vulnerable, wounded states. In the early 2000s, Xie began to use blurred photographs and increasingly mediated source imagery to create large-scale paintings that verged on abstraction, three of which were exhibited at Documenta in 2007. He has since introduced a wider range of approaches into his practice, notably including a “canvas print”  technique in which he paints onto a second canvas such that only the traces that have seeped through to the base canvas remain on the completed work.

Xie has exhibited widely internationally with solo exhibitions at Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2024); Petzel, New York (2022); Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing (2024, 2020, 2015); Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2023, 2019); Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen (2021); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2018); Kunstverein Hamburger Bahnhof, Hamburg (2005); Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2003); and Pulitzer Gallery, Amsterdam (1998).

Recent and notable group exhibitions include: Sigg Prize at M+, Hong Kong (2023); UCCA Edge, Shanghai ‘Painting Unsettled’ (2023); Beijing Biennale, Beijing (2022); Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing (2021); Song Art Museum, Beijing (2020); Hive Center For Contemporary Art, Beijing (2020); The Warehouse, Dallas (2020); Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2019); MAK Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna (2019); Casa Cavazzini, Udine (2017); Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu (2016); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2016); Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2015); OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen (2014); Gerhard Richter and the Disappearance of the Image in Contemporary Art, Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina (CCCS), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2010); Painting on the Move, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2002); Documenta XII, Kassel (2007); and d’APERTutto, La Biennale di Venezia, 48. Esposizione Internationale d’Arte, Venice (1999).