Sitian Zeng
About
Contact
Instagram: sitian.zeng
Artist Statement
Sitian Zeng (b. 1995, China) is a Glasgow-based artist and doctoral researcher at the Glasgow School of Art. Sitian’s artworks involve painting, mixed-media art, and moving images, whilst her research interests lie within interdisciplinary contexts, focusing on topics including painting in the expanded field, subjectivity, identity, mass media, and the power structure in the post-digital age. As a millennial artist, Sitian is sensitive to the amount of virtual fragmented information that has shaped her growth. The pervasive penetration of virtual information into people's lives leads to her art exploration of how Michel Foucault's theory of power structure reflects in the post-digital age. As a practice-based researcher, she explores the entanglement of art practice and philosophy as she utilises the philosophical concept of the rhizome by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to develop a way of rhizomatic painting, which is characterised by spontaneity and flux. At the same time, she also uses painting as a socially critical medium to question the potential control of digital information over human beings and how subjectivity is passively shaped in the post-digital age. Her work has been exhibited internationally. Recent highlights include the solo exhibition Re: Paint Fw: You (2024, Glasgow), participation in the CA²RE conference (2024, Belgrade), and Crisis/Death/Resurrection: A Painting Symposium (2024, Triskel Art Centre, Cork).
Glasgow School of Art Postgraduate Degree Show, Stow College, 2021
Education
2023-, Ph.D in Fine Art, The Glasgow School of Art, UK,
The current PhD research entitled ‘Museum as an Autonomous Subject: Painting and the Formation of Subjectivity’
2020-21, MA (Distinction), Painting, The Glasgow School of Art, UK
2019-22, MFA, Watercolour, The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts , China
2014-18, BA, Lacquer art and wood craft, Nanjing University of the Arts
Employment
2022-23 Beijing Maxine International Education Technology Co., Ltd, China, Art Tutor(Part-time).
Conference and Symposium
2025, Crisis/Death/Resurrection: A Painting Symposium, Triskel Art Centre, Cork, Ireland.
2024, MeCCSA Postgraduate Network Conference.
2024, CA²RE, the Conference for Artistic and Architectural Research, Belgrade.
Awards and Exhibitions
2025, Borders exhibition, Cass art, Glasgow, the UK
2025, Salon des Echangistes exhibition, Annex Gallery, Glasgow, the UK
2024, ‘Re: paint Fw: you’, Solo exhibition, Project Space 1, Assembly Building, Glasgow, the UK
2024, ‘Sorry, can you say that again?’, Group Exhibition, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, the UK
2024, The 2nd Hong Kong Youth Arts Awards, Bronze Medal
2023, Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Online Exhibition
2021, 3rd Fujian Province Watercolor Exhibition, The Academic Nomination Award, China
2021, The Character of the 3rd Academy—Academic Exhibition of ‘College Watercolor’, China
2021, The 3rd prize of Wang Zhaomin Art Award
2020, ‘Painting on Erythrina’, Group Exhibition, The First Prize, Quanzhou city, China
2020, The Rubens scholarship of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China
2020, 2nd Shenzhen International Watercolor Biennale, Group Exhibition, China
2020, 2nd National Watercolor Network Exhibition, Online Exhibition
2020, ‘I and My Motherland’— Guangzhou Art Exhibition, Group Exhibition, China
2020, Guangdong Artists Association's Art Works Exhibition , Group Exhibition, China
2020, Chaoshan City watercolor Annual Exhibition, Group Exhibition, China
2019, The 8th College Students Art Fair, Group Exhibition, China
2017, The 4th Zi Jing Award Cultural Creative Competition in Jiangsu Province, China