Ding Yi (Chinese: 丁㇠; born 1962) is a Chinese contemporary artist currently based in Shanghai. A leading figure in Chinese contemporary art, Ding Yi works across painting, sculpture, installation, and architecture. Since the late 1980s, his signature motif—the cross “+” and its variant “x”—has served as a symbol of structure, rationality, and a visual language exploring the essence of being.
Early life Trained in both art and design, Ding Yi began experimenting with abstraction in 1982. During his student years, he developed a strong conviction about how to paint and what kind of artist he would become. Rejecting the Expressionism and Surrealism then prevalent in China, he chose a rational path “free from ideology.” Profoundly influenced by Western artists such as Piet Mondrian and Frank Stella during the 1985 “New Wave” art movement, Ding Yi launched his iconic Appearance of Crosses series in 1988, with a vision to create “an ultimate impression of abstraction”. At the time, he “designed” paintings that resembled plans for fabrics or blankets, using rulers and tape to eliminate traces of hand gestures —rigorously precise compositions formed through the repetition of the cross.https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/ding-yi
Career Ding Yi's enduring method of incorporating crosses into his work emerged in the late 1980s. He executed a series of painting experiments called Appearance of Crosses, in which the artist adopted the shapes of x and + as a recurring motif with the intention of combining painting and design into a single form of expression. The cross, whether a + or an x, is a motif that the artist has declared as a formal mark without meaning, while the context of this work is the industrial-paced development of the urban environment in post-socialist China. His perennial idiom —-- the grid —-- speaks to a context in place and time, through its association with the frenetic communications networks and distinctive fluorescence of the contemporary city.
Style The majority of his work features repetitions of the sign superimposed in different layers, colors, and rotations; the tiny, manually painted symbols cover the entire surface of large canvases, requiring a painstaking amount of precision and technical skill. By applying extremely rational design elements, Ding sought to "make painting that was not like painting," and for the past thirty years he has exclusively and relentlessly executed abstract paintings with shapes of small cross. The majority of his work features repetitions of the plus sign superimposed in different layers, colors, and rotations; the tiny, manually painted symbols cover the entire surface of large canvases, requiring a painstaking amount of precision and technical skill.
Institutional solo exhibitions 2026 Cosmotechnics: Ding Yi as a Planetary Code, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, Italy 2025 Ding Yi: Between Prediction and Retrospection, Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales, UK 2025 Ding Yi: The Winding Path, Contemporary Gallery Kunming & Anthropology Museum of Yunnan University, Yunnan, China 2024 Ding Yi: Prediction and Retrospection, Château La Côste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France 2024 Crisscrosses: Ding Yi’s Public Art for Twenty Years Minghua Sugar Factory, Yangpu Waterfront, Shanghai, China 2023 Ding Yi: Homeland and Journey, Ningbo Museum of Art & Huamao Museum of Art Education, Ningbo, China 2023 Ding Yi: Cross Galaxy, Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning，Shenzhen, China 2023 Dimension of “Crosses”, Mojie Art Museum, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China 2022 Ding Yi: Flowing Infinity, TAG Art Museum, Qingdao, Shandong, China 2022 Multi-verse:Ding Yi in Tibet, Jebum-gang Art Center & Shide space, Lhasa, China 2021 The Dream of Permanence, West Bund Art & Design Fair, Shanghai 2020 Ding Yi: The Cross-Style, Long Museum, Chongqing, China 2018 十×30 Years — Ding Yi's Works, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou 2017 Appearance of Crosses: A Chronicle, Xi'an Art Museum, Xi'an 2017 Appearance of Crosses, Sean Scully Studio, London, UK 2016 Ding Yi-Art Unlimited, Art Basel 2016, Booth Nr. U54, Basel, Switzerland 2016 Re-Appearance of Crosses, Ding Yi Solo Show, Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, Hubei 2015 Ding Yi: What's Left to Appear, Long Museum (West Bund), Shanghai 2013 2013 Art Changsha, Changsha City Museum, Hunan Province 2011 Specific Abstracted, Ding Yi Solo Exhibition, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai 2008 Appearance of Crosses from 1989 to 2007, Solo Exhibition of Ding Yi, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, Italy 2005 Appearance of Crosses, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, U.K. 2004 Crossed Vision, Works by Ding Yi, China Art Archive & Warehouse, Beijing, China 2000 Ding Yi: Fluorescent Paint on Tartan, China Art Archive & Warehouse, Beijing, China 1998 Ding Yi: Crosses'89 -'98, International Art Palace, Beijing, China 1997 Ding Yi: Crosses'97, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China 1994 Exhibition of Ding Yi's Abstract Art Works, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China 1994 Ding Yis Work on Paper, Guangzhou Fine Art Academy, Guangzhou, China
Museum collections His works are included in the collections of: University of Sydney Art Collection, Australia CDU Art Collection, Australia Stichting Van Tuyckom Foundation, Brussels, Belgium Chinese Modern Art Foundation, Ghent, Belgium Centre Pompidou, Paris, France DSL Collection, Paris, France Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Berlin, Germany The City of Hamburg Germany, Hamburg, Germany Yuz Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan Morioka City Library, Morioka, Japan Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeongju, Korea The British Museum, London, UK Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK Fosun Foundation, New York, USA The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA UBS Art Collection, Zurich, Switzerland Taikang Collection, Beijing, China The National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China A4 Art Museum, Chengdu, China Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu, China Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing, China Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China By Art Matters, Hangzhou, China K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China M+ Collection, Hong Kong, China Jebum-gang Art Center, Lhasa, China Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China Huamao Museum of Art Education, Ningbo, China Ningbo Museum of Art, Ningbo, China Tag Art Museum, Qingdao, China ASE Foundation, Shanghai, China China Art Museum (former Shanghai Art Museum), Shanghai, China Long Museum, Shanghai, China MOCA Shanghai, China Powerlong Art Museum, Shanghai, China Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China Shanghai Bund Art Center, Shanghai, China Star Museum, Shanghai, China Tank Shanghai, China Z-art Center, Shanghai, China Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, Shenzhen, China He Art Museum, Shunde, China Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China Xi'an Art Museum, Xi'an, China Yitiao Art Foundation, Hangzhou, China
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