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Dai Mouyu

b. 1975, Guangdong, China · Lives and works in Shanghai, China

Dai Mouyu is a Chinese artist whose practice centres on works on paper. He began his artistic practice with photography and participated in a number of photography and image-based exhibitions before gradually shifting his focus towards drawing and ink painting. Chinese traditional culture has remained an important source of inspiration and spiritual reference throughout his practice.

Line is fundamental to Dai’s visual language. From densely accumulated technical-pen drawings to the increasingly fluid use of ink in his recent works, he explores the relationship between precision and spontaneity, order and release, accumulation and emptiness. Repetition and sustained acts of drawing form an important part of his working process, allowing questions of time, attention and inner states to emerge through the physical construction of the image.

Rather than directly reproducing traditional pictorial conventions, Dai draws upon the spatial sensibility, linear structures and contemplative qualities associated with Chinese painting and calligraphy. His earlier experience with photography, together with daily drawing and accumulated visual memory, informs a practice that moves between observation and introspection, classical resonance and contemporary perception.

EDUCATION 1999 Department of Decorative Arts, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, China SELECTED SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2026 Yixian Zhenyi, solo exhibition, MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2023 Flowing, with Wang Yizhou, MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2022 Meanderings of the Heart, solo exhibition, ArtCN Gallery, Shanghai, China Mountain Retreat, with Wang Yizhou, MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2021 One Line, from Beginning to the End, solo exhibition, RuiPin Gallery, Shanghai, China 2020 In illo tempore, with Wan Qiong, ArtCN Gallery, Shanghai, China 2019 Return, solo exhibition, MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China Wholehearted, solo exhibition, INNOO Gallery, Shanghai, China 2016–2017 Timeline, with Sun Yue, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2015–2016 Unknowingly, Unconsciously, solo exhibition, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2014 Moments, solo exhibition, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2009 Impetus – Works on Paper, solo exhibition, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2007 Fei Yiyi, solo exhibition, Gallery 17, Shanghai, China SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2026 Parallel Currents, ArtCN Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Xing Li Zhang Cheng, MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2025 Journey to the West, ArtCN, 12Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 2024–2025 Every Day is a Good Day, with Taizo Kuroda and John Cage, MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2019 Fictitious Plane, Chun Art Museum, Shanghai, China Future Games, Kommunale Galerie, Berlin, Germany 2017 The Drama of Daily Life, Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, China Dreamshake – FQ Projects Summer Show, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2015 Mirror and Light, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China REAL-LY, Ray Art Center, Shanghai, China 2014 Summer Group Exhibition, FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2010 Infantization, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (macLYON), Lyon, France 2009 Art Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Young Artists, Antwerp, Belgium Shanghai Memory – Photograph & DVD Exhibition of 60 Artists, Shanghai Hongmiao Art, Shanghai, China 2008 Infantization, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taipei, China 2007 A Real Experience, Pretty Land Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany Infantization, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2006 The 2nd Shanghai Duolun Youth Art Exhibition, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China Threshold of Photography, Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Lianzhou, China 2005 Re(-)viewing the City: 2005 Guangzhou Photo Biennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China SELECTED ART FAIRS 2025 West Bund Art & Design, with MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2024 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, with MOODSEA GALLERY, Shanghai, China 2020 West Bund Art & Design, with ArtCN Gallery, Shanghai, China 2018 Art West Lake · International Ink Wash Art Fair, Hangzhou, China 2016 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, with FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2015 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, with FQ Projects, Shanghai, China 2014 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, with FQ Projects, Shanghai, China Art14 London, with FQ Projects, Olympia Grand Hall, London, United Kingdom 2011 SH Contemporary, with FQ Projects, Shanghai, China