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. Over the past decade, she has actively engaged in artistic practice and built her career through painting, mixed-media art, and moving images. Her practice-led research lies within interdisciplinary contexts across areas such as painting in the expanded field, subjectivity, identity, mass media, and the power structure in the post-digital age. Her practice-led doctoral research provides a solid theoretical foundation for her practice: 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 the 'slowness' of painting to critique the fleeting nature of digital image culture, and she explores the performativity of painting and artists' subjectivity through the lens of new materialism and vitalism. Sitian's work has been nominated for international awards and exhibited in China, the UK and internationally. In addition, she has presented papers on contemporary painting and her artistic practice at various events across Europe, and she also teaches Fine Art in higher education in both China and the UK.
Glasgow School of Art Postgraduate Degree Show, Stow College, 2021
Education
2023-, Ph.D in Fine Art, The Glasgow School of Art, UK
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.
Selected Awards
2025, Watercolour Award 1st Prize, Royal West of England Academy(RWA) 172 Annual Open Exhibition, Bristol, UK
2024, The 2nd Hong Kong Youth Arts Awards, Bronze Medal
2022, Excellent Graduation Work Award of the 2022 Master's Degree of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China
2022, Wang Zhaomin Art Award, The 3rd Prize, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China
2021, ‘Quanxin Cup’, The 3rd Fujian Watercolour Exhibition, The Academic Nomination Award, China
2020, Painting on Erythrina, The 1st Prize, Group Exhibition, China
2020, The Rubens scholarship of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China
2017, The 4th Zi Jing Award Cultural Creative Competition (with exhibition), China
2017, The 3rd Zi Jing Award Cultural Creative Competition (with exhibition), China
Solo Exhibition
2025, Interface: A Discrete Body, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, UK
2024, Re: paint Fw: you’, Project Space 1, Assembly Building, Glasgow, UK
Selected Exhibitions
2025, Through Glitches and Reveries, Saltspace, Glasgow, UK
2025, The Summer Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2025, Plants-A Postcard Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2025, Borders exhibition, Cass Art, Glasgow, UK
2025, Salon des Echangistes exhibition, Annex Gallery, Glasgow, UK
2024, Sorry, can you say that again? New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, UK
2023, Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Online Exhibition
2021, The Character of the 3rd Academy—Academic Exhibition of ‘College Watercolour’, Guangzhou, China
2020, Exhibition of Teachers and Students' Works of the Watercolour Painting Department of the School of Painting and Drawing of GAFA, Yueyi Museum, Foshan, China
2020, 2nd Shenzhen International Watercolour Biennale, Shenzhen, China
2020, 3rd National Online Exhibition of Emerging Water-based Media Works by University Students, Online exhibition
2020, Chaoshan Watercolour Annual Exhibition, Chaoshan, China
2020, Guangdong Artists Association's Art Works Exhibition on Fighting the Epidemic, Guangzhou, China
2020, ‘Encounter’—The 2nd National Online Watercolour Exhibition, Online Exhibition
2020, ‘I and My Motherland’— Guangzhou Art Exhibition, Guangzhou, China
2019, The 8th University Student Art Fair, Guangzhou, China
2016, Integration and Excellence – The 2nd Jiangsu Province University Design Exhibition, Nanjing, China