Beijing Dangdai Art Fair 2026 will take place from May 21 to 24 at Hall 11 of the National Agricultural Exhibition Center, with May 21 to 22 as VIP Preview Days and May 23 to 24 as Public Days. Under the theme “LAND TRACE,” this year’s edition re-examines cultural differences and uneven experiences through the lens of geography and historical geography across multiple contexts, further delineating the detailed landscape of contemporary art amid a moment of value reshaping.

We will be releasing a series of posters centered on works featured at the Fair. These works not only offer possible interpretations of and responses to “LAND TRACE,” but also serve as preview highlights of key artworks and participating institutions. The poster shared in this edition features a work by artist He Duoling from A Thousand Plateaus Art Space — a painting that uses landscape as a metaphor for the human condition.

About the Artwork

He Duoling
No.2 Grass on the Meadow No.2
Oil on canvas
200 × 150 cm
2020
©Courtesy of the Artist and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space

The Grass on the Meadow series was created by He Duoling during an exceptional period, when the artist spent most of his time painting within the confines of his studio courtyard. In search of visual material, he would often drive alone to the outskirts of Chengdu, looking for landscapes and sources of inspiration. What he encountered was a suburban wilderness emptied of human presence—an urban periphery transformed into a desolate terrain, reminiscent of a post-human world. It was through this experience that he sought to articulate, on canvas, a profound sense of emptiness: a true state of “void.”

He describes this body of work as “landscapes that are not landscapes.” From the conventional perspective of landscape painting, the dark woods and overgrown weeds in these paintings might not be considered beautiful. Yet for the artist, grass is a concrete form of existence. In the outskirts of Chengdu, wild grass grows in overwhelming density, spreading without limit. It possesses its own rhythm and cadence, adapting and competing for energy and territory, almost eclipsing the sky itself—a condition that resonates with the realities of human existence. Throughout his practice, He Duoling has approached nature and life through an egalitarian cosmology, a worldview deeply nourished by the traditions of ancient Chinese philosophy and aesthetics.

About the Artist

Portrait of Artist

©Courtesy of the artist and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space

He  Duoling,  born  in  Chengdu, is a representative of  contemporary Chinese lyrical realism oil painting artists.

He enrolled in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1977  as a major in oil painting and pursued his master’s degree there in 1979. He has won the silver and bronze awards of the 6th National Fine Arts Exhibition,  the bronze award of the 7th National Fine Arts Exhibition, and the Monaco Government Award etc.

He has an irreplaceable position in the history of contemporary Chinese art, and he is one of the important  artists of Scar Art.  In the early  1980s,  he caused a sensation with his oil paintings Spring Breeze Has Awakened, Youth and strip pictures Snow Goose, and became a representative painter for shaping a national and collective image. In 1992, his work This Is the Night overturned the focus perspective principle he had always adhered to,  and used the treatment of double space for the first time, and the style of his work became closer to the style of Chinese classical painting. Over the years, He’s artistic language has been advancing and evolving, and the changes in  each period have  different  themes and discussions of painting, the only constant is the mysterious and melancholy contemporary temperament. He is regarded as a realist painter with outstanding talent, and has also subtly influenced generations of young people.

He Duoling ’ s works have been collected by domestic and international art institutions and collectors such as China Art Museum, Fukuoka Art Museum, Long Museum, Song Art Gallery, Yuz Museum, He Art Museum, Macau Museum of Art, Contemporary Gallery Kunming, Guangdong Museum of Art, Chengdu Art Museum, Hubei Museum of Art, Taikang Art Museum etc.