Qualia Contemporary Art is pleased to present Not Yet Defined, a solo exhibition by preeminent Chinese contemporary artist, Wang Tiande. In this exhibition, Wang presents a new series of burned landscapes on layered paper, plaster cast figurines, and traditional Chinese silk garments with calligraphy burned from incense. Not Yet Defined offers an intimate exploration of Wang's ongoing meditations on time and impermanence, where acts of destruction become moments of creation. An opening reception will be held on July 25, 2026 from 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm and the exhibition will be on view through September 5, 2026. For more information, please visit www.qualiagallery.com
Internationally recognized for redefining the possibilities of ink painting and calligraphy, Wang Tiande has established a practice that bridges traditional Chinese aesthetics and contemporary conceptual art. Wang is best known for his burned landscapes on layered paper specially commissioned by a traditional papermaking workshop in an ancient village along the Fuchun River in Zhejiang Province. Using a lit incense stick, he burns intricate networks of marks through layered sheets of handmade paper or silk, allowing absence rather than ink to construct mountains, rivers, and calligraphic forms. Fire’s destructive capabilities are used in this way to create something altogether new through the gesture of erasure.
The works in Not Yet Defined continue Wang’s navigation between tradition and transformation through a series of new landscapes composed with ink, Chinese pigments, and layered handmade paper burned with incense. Several paintings such as Horizon View From Secluded Hut introduce vivid swaths of color including luminous red suns that punctuate otherwise restrained compositions of mountains and snowscapes. Wang also incorporates Chinese couplets, a form of poetry and decoration consisting of two parallel lines of calligraphy that were traditionally displayed for protection, prosperity, and luck.
Presented alongside the landscapes are a selection of three-dimensional works including plaster casts of pre-Tang Dynasty figurines and several traditional men's and women's garments, including a Qing dynasty robe, whose surfaces bear calligraphic passages burned into layered silk with incense. Beginning in 2004, this ongoing body of work treats clothing as a relic of lived experience. Seen as more than protective coverings for the body, Wang elevates these garments as odes to cultural memory.
For Wang, artistic creation remains an open-ended process rather than a destination. Works evolve through revision and reconsideration rather than progressing toward a final, conclusive state. The exhibition's title, Not Yet Defined, reflects this understanding of creativity as an open condition of becoming. "Life is a continual repetition of our own experiences," Wang says. "Not Yet Defined is a process of being repeatedly moved by oneself and wounded by oneself; artistic creation is much the same."
Through his distinctive use of fire, paper, silk, and calligraphy, he has transformed some of the oldest artistic traditions in China into a profoundly contemporary meditation on history, memory, and the impermanence of all things.
An opening reception for Not Yet Defined will be held on July 25, 2026, from 4:30–6:30 pm. The exhibition will remain on view through September 5, 2026.