Kong Shengqi

Kong Shengqi's works, carved in wood, soft and clear, bring out of the material fantastic and organic creatures, with round faces and naive features, sometimes almost childish and sometimes terrifying. Her obvious love for the material that is wood and her way of sculpting particularly evokes the arts of the natives of North America, which can be found in Alaska or on the Inuit lands of Canada.

Biography

Young Chinese artist born in Beijing in 1989, Kong Shengqi chose to settle in France from 2015 after studying architecture in China. She initially followed a second cycle “space design option” at the Institute of Arts in Toulouse before entering École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where she obtained a DNSAP with the congratulations of the jury in 2018 and will be part of the admissions jury for the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris the following year. She is also the laureate of Beaux-Arts de Paris x Altarea project in 2020 and Beaux-Arts de Paris x Moët Hennessy project and Prix Gide – Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2021. She currently lives and works in Paris.

Kong Shengqi’s works, carved in wood, soft and clear, bring out of the material fantastic and organic creatures, with round faces and naive features, sometimes almost childish and sometimes terrifying.

Her obvious love for the material that is wood and her way of sculpting particularly evokes the arts of the natives of North America, which can be found in Alaska or on the Inuit lands of Canada.

In the “project” report dedicated to her last exhibition, Margaux Brugvin specifies that her sculptures “are thought to be used in forms of invented rituals. One looks through the cavity of a screaming face to discover the slits of two eyes on the other side of the sculpture. For the latter, Kong Shengqi’s sculptures evoke sacred objects, human or animal deities on which the visitor is free to project their own references and interpretations and come to explore “their childhood fascinations and terrors, the mystery of what happens inside bodies, inside every living being, the biological or mystical forces that govern every entity and make up our world of which we do not understand that so few things. »

Career

Solo Exhibitions

2024
Fantasy Therapy, In resonance with the 17th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, Hôtel Dieu Museum, Belleville-en-Beaujolais, France

2023
Snake in the Grass, Line of Dust, Tobichi Art Museum, Nagano, Japan

2021
Abracadabois, Solo exhibition, Yishu 8 – Chez Tante Martine, Paris, France
Summer Theatre, Solo exhibition, Residency of Musée Bernard Boesch, Le Pouliguen, France

2018
Evisceration, Solo exhibition, Chapel of the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

2017
The Skin of Premonition, Solo exhibition, Café Héloïse, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

Group Exhibitions

2025
Monumental – Sculpture Garden, Galerie Loft, Fourges, France
Dear Melpomene, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
There is a Mountain Inside the Body, Galerie Taloté, Vannes, France

2024
Trame, New Franco-Chinese Institute, Lyon, France
ME & THE OTHERS, Galerie Catherine Issert, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France
19th Biennale of Contemporary Art of Champigny, Champigny-sur-Marne, France

2023
Here, by Coincidence, Tobichi Art Museum, Tatsuno, Japan
wood·wood·wooden, Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris, France
Room of Waves, Project & Show for Design Parade, Villa Noailles, Toulon, France

2022
Emergences.fr, Bozar – Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
PARADE, Le PréàVie, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, France
Bodies & Souls, Galerie Loft, Paris, France
-196 °C, Group Exhibition, Le PréàVie, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, France
Emergences.fr, Group Exhibition, Bozar – Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium

2021
Parade – Small Bites, Movement, The Sea, Group Exhibition, La Maison Fraternelle, Paris, France
Figures, Group Exhibition, Galerie Catherine Issert, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France
And You Dance Without Knowing It, Group Exhibition, Open-air, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, France
With My Wolf’s Hunger, Group Exhibition, Le PréàVie, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, France
100% L’EXPO, Group Exhibition of Festival 100%, Grande Halle de la Villette, Paris, France
Live Joyfully, Group Exhibition, Le PréàVie, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, France

2020
Combination, Duo Exhibition, Villa Kultur, Copenhagen, Denmark
Anatomical Theatre, Group Exhibition in the windows of Saint-Germain Galleries, Galerie Loft, Paris, France

2019
FELICITÀ, Graduation Group Exhibition, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
Finale, Graduate Exhibition, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

2016
LabBooks – ed. 2016, Group Exhibition of LabBooks, Médiathèque des Abattoirs, Toulouse, France

Residencies & Workshops

2025–2026
La Casa de Velázquezm, Spain

2024
Vent des Forêts, Meuse, France

2023
Tobichi Art Museum, Nagano, Japan

2022
Association ART 8, Paris, France

2021
Artist-in-Residence, Association ART 8, Paris, France
Artist-in-Residence, Musée Bernard Boesch, Le Pouliguen, France

2017
Woodcut and Printmaking, Masterclass by Gutenberg Arts, Danmarks Tekniske Museum, Helsingør

2016
Endeavor, the Shift, with Niels Trannois, Group Exhibition at isdaT, Toulouse, France

2015
RE – Borrowing, Remix, and Re-editing in Contemporary Arts, with Joanne Leighton, Presentations at isdaT & Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France

2011
Renewal of the Akabane Residential District, Workshop with Nobuaki Furuya, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Horizontal Town in Seoul – The Collective Domain with Diversified Intensity, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea

2010
Wood Structure, with Institut für Baukonstruktion Lehrstuhl 1, University of Stuttgart at CAFA, Beijing, China

2009
Crossing Now – Dialogues for Emergency Architecture, with Rintala Eggertsson Architects and Norwegian University of Science and Technology, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China

Public Commissions

2024
Topinambours Troubadours, Site-Specific Sculptures, Vent des Forêts, Meuse, France

Awards

Encouragement Prize in Sculpture, Académie des Beaux-Arts, France

2021
Laureate, Beaux-Arts de Paris x Moët Hennessy Project
Laureate, Gide Prize – Beaux-Arts de Paris, France
Nominee, Friends of Beaux-Arts de Paris Grant, France

2020
Laureate, Beaux-Arts de Paris x Altarea Project

2019
Member of the Admissions Jury, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris

Education

2018
DNSAP with Jury Honors, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris

2015–2016
Second Cycle, Spatial Design Option, Institut Supérieur des Arts de Toulouse

2012–2014
Architect, Approach Architecture Studio

2012
Assistant to Curator Sébastien Léon Agneessens, UC