Huang Gang 黄钢
Chinese, b. 1961


Huang Gang was born in Beijing in 1961. He graduated from China Central Academy of Art and Design in 1984 and attained a Master degree in 1991.

Huang Gang creates art in a new approach with his unique style, which sets him apart from other artists. He has achieved world-wide recognition and been praised in the highest terms by audiences from a variety of nations and cultural backgrounds. He spent his childhood and teen years under the rage of China’s Cultural Revolution. Influenced by his father, a well-known professor of Chinese art history, and his mother, an archaeology analyst, he was brought up with Chinese traditional art and soon started practicing calligraphy. In 1995 he won a silver award of the first Beijing International Environment Artist which was exhibited. He was especially interviewed by “LE FIGARO” Magazine in 1997 where he participated in the China International Art Fair Beijing.

Significant changes took place as China transited from communism and the Cultural Revolution to commercialism and westernization and this is reflected in many of China’s contemporary artists. Similarly, this had influenced Huang Gang and his artistic expression. The central thought of Huang Gang’s art deals with the use of symbols to express culture, social norms, and history. In Huang Gang’s work, his symbols have common cognitive meanings, dictated by the environment during the period of China’s Cultural Revolution. The use of ‘stars’ in his work is one such example. Widely associated with many interpretations, however placed in the Chinese context, it draws to a distinct period in history. For someone who is aware and within the sphere of the shared history, it immediately calls to mind the Cultural Revolution.