Wei Dong was born in 1968 in Inner Mongolia, China. He received a BA in Fine Arts from the Department of Fine Arts, Capital Normal University, China in 1991 and moved to the United States the same year.
A personal obsession with the female body is one of Wei Dong’s many complex interests. Growing up in China under the watchful eye of Mao’s red guard, sexual fantasies and freedoms were forcibly repressed. Socialist realism was the standard fair in the art academies of the time, and as a result, any hint of sexual or erotic expression was taboo. Upon entering the United States in 1991, Wei Dong’s preoccupation with the root of erotic desires as a young adult were given free reign over his canvases, resulting in grandiose explorations of the flesh.
In the artist's words, "I paint others’ faces and bodies, but it’s mostly a very personal experience... about my perception of other people, my own feelings. I even see myself in certain figures.”
Attributed to the artist’s consistent exposure to the consumer-based culture of the United States by way of fashion magazines and newspapers, it is the artist’s intention to create a new visual language consisting of disparate individual sources, similar, in a way, to how individual Chinese characters convey a meaning beyond their uniqueness as images.
Wei Dong has exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world with exhibitions at Chinese Contemporary Art Gallery, London, UK; Oriental Foundation, Macao, China; National Contemporary Art Gallery, Beijing, China; Jack Tilton Gallery, New York; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong; La Biennale de Issy, France; Plum Blossoms Gallery, Hong Kong; Estella Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Arndt & Partner Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland; Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York; Goteborg Art Museum, Goteborg, Sweden.