We’re proud to see GUAN WEI’s Cloud B#3 travel from the National Gallery of Australia to Warwick Art Gallery as part of the Sharing the National Collection program - written about in a media release from the Minister of the Arts.
On view in the Southern Downs for the next two years, this striking bronze sculpture reflects Guan Wei’s distinctive visual language - blending Chinese cultural heritage with Australian symbolism.
"This loan offers rare access to a major contemporary artwork by an artist whose own story of resilience adds depth and relevance to our regional context. Its uplifting sense of positivity and gentle whimsy will spark curiosity, joy, and conversation, enriching our cultural landscape in meaningful ways.” - Warwick Art Gallery Director, Karina Devine
Congratulations to Warwick Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia on this important partnership and loan.
Guan Wei’s bronze sculptures are highly recognised for their unique fusion of Eastern and Western traditions, embodying his signature blend of cultural symbolism and contemporary form. Collectors value Guan Wei’s sculptures for their conceptual depth, meticulous craftsmanship, and their powerful engagement with themes of identity, history, and cultural dialogue.
GUAN WEI and JOHN YOUNG feature in Where Memory Transforms at RACV
GUAN WEI and JOHN YOUNG feature in Where Memory Transforms, now showing in the RACV exhibition space at the Bourke Street City Club Gallery Lounge.
This powerful exhibition brings together artists Kate Beynon, Melissa Nguyen, Lindy Lee, Guan Wei, and John Young, each reflecting on their experiences as Australians with heritage from Hong Kong, Vietnam, or China. They examine the fluid relationship between memory, identity, and belonging. Across painting, watercolour, and installation, each artist navigates the intersections of personal and collective histories, tracing cultural inheritances and moments of transformation.
Where Memory Transforms is now open to RACV members until 22 February 2026, curated by the RACV Art team. To view by appointment please contact art@racv.com.au
GUAN WEI featured in Awakening Histories at MUMA
GUAN WEI features in Awakening Histories at Monash University Museum of Art - an exhibition tracing deep connections between First Nations peoples and Southeast Asian seafarers from Makassar, South Sulawesi.
In these three finely painted porcelain works - Delicacies Jar, Nourishing Jar and Australian Sea Cucumber Plate, 2025 - Guan Wei reflects on cultural exchange, migration and memory. Through cobalt-blue imagery, he connects ancient trade routes linking Marege, Kayu Djawa, Makassar and China, revealing how art, food and knowledge have long travelled across oceans to shape shared histories.
The exhibition will be on display at MUMA, 4 October–6 December 2025 and the exhibition continues at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), 6 February–29 March 2026.
GUAN WEI exhibiting in special project for HOTA's dedicated Children's Gallery
GUAN WEI's painting Sky (1998) is soon to be exhibited as part of a special project for HOTA's dedicated Children's Gallery
The exhibition, Cloudy with a Chance of Art, opens on 8 November 2025 and will run over the summer. HOTA (formerly Gold Coast City Gallery) aims to elevate the experience for families visiting the Children’s Gallery by exposing them to exemplary works of art such as Guan Wei's from the HOTA Collection, as well as loans from public collections from across the country.
Sky featured in Guan Wei's installation, Feng Shui, for the 1998 Asia Pacific Triennal. Feng Shui made a statement about the holistic and intrinsic relationship between human beings and the natural environment. The issues raised in the work were from a number of perspectives: from a historical point of view the piece looked at how humans have explored their living space; from a scientific point of view, how understandings of its existence and structure are reached; from an artistic point of view, how people express their emotional relationships with the environment; and from a practical viewpoint, how people use natural resources, like sand, rocks, water and even life.
GUAN WEI has been awarded the 2025 ACAA Arts and Creativity Award
GUAN WEI has been awarded the 2025 ACAA Arts and Creativity Award, presented by Australia China Alumni Association.
This award recognises Guan Wei’s extraordinary contribution to the arts and his significant international reputation as a contemporary artist whose work crosses cultural borders.
Internationally acclaimed for his distinctive visual language transforming Chinese iconography, Guan Wei’s work spans painting, sculpture, and installation. His internationally renowned work is held in major public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art and the Contemporary Art and Culture Centre.
GUAN WEI featured in 'Passage and Echo' exhibition at Vermilion Art
GUAN WEI is currently featured in Passage and Echo: A Dialogue Across the Century that recently opened at Vermilion Art in Sydney, alongside the works of Sidney Nolan.
In this captivating exhibition, Guan Wei reimagines Australia’s iconic Ned Kelly in a Chinese landscape—where his armour and silence merge with mountains formed by ink and cloud. The exhibition brings to life a vision that began when Guan Wei, at just 18, first encountered Nolan’s Ned Kelly and imagined this unexpected cultural fusion.
Now, decades later, that vision has become a powerful conversation across time and borders, reflecting the rich potential of cross-cultural exchange.
More information can be found here.
GUO JIAN & GUAN WEI Feature in Exhibition at Gallery Lane Cove
GUO JIAN, The Beauty No.6 [detail], 2024, Inkjet pigment print, Edition of 3, 116 x 83 cm.
Celebrating Lunar New Year 🐍
Guo Jian and Guan Wei are both featured in the beautiful exhibition In the Mood for Love 良宵 at Gallery Lane Cove, guest curated by Abigail Kim and Dr. Yeqin Zuo.
The exhibition reflects the intricate tapestry of both personal and shared narratives that flourish during this festive season—a time for reflection, renewal, and connection.
In the Mood for Love 良宵
📅 Until 11 February
📍 Gallery Lane Cove, 164 Longueville Road, Lane Cove NSW 2066
GUAN WEI awarded Creative Australia Award for Visual Arts 2024
Congratulations to Guan Wei, who has been presented the Creative Australia Award for Visual Arts 2024. A recognition of an incredible career, this major award acknowledges the achievements of an artist who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to Australian art.
Guan Wei has been living and working between Beijing, China and Sydney Australia since 1989. Guan Wei is an iconic figure in the Australian contemporary art scene and critically acclaimed internationally. Through his art, he reflects upon the human condition as we engage with critical contemporary issues, such as climate change, questions of identity, migration and exile. Guan Wei has held over 80 solo exhibitions in Australia and internationally from the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney to OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT) Shenzhen China and has been included in countless group exhibitions from South Korea to Cuba.
GUAN WEI shortlisted in Calleen Art Award
CALLEEN ART AWARD 2024
Congratulations to Guan Wei, who has been selected as a finalist in the Calleen Art Award 2024! Hosted by the Cowra Regional Art Gallery, the annual Calleen Art Award was established in 1977 as an acquisitive art prize by Mrs Patricia Fagan OAM, to encourage originality, creativity and excellence in the visual arts.
Guan Wei's entry 'Fluidity of Time and Space No. 2' (2023) depicts an an impossible courtyard. As we step inside its walls, the inhabitants, seemingly engaged in mysterious courtship rituals, stop dead in their tracks.
The winner will be announced at the exhibition opening on Friday 27 September 2024, to be judged by Mr Richard Perram OAM, Curator and former director Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.
CALLEEN ART AWARD 2024.
📅 27 September to 17 November 2024
📍Cowra Regional Art Gallery
GUAN WEI
Fluidity of Time and Space No. 2, 2023
Acrylic on canvas (diptych)
98 x 87 cm
GUAN WEI Shortlisted for Sulman Prize
📣 GUAN WEI has just been announced as a finalist in the Sulman Prize 2024 with his work, Off to the Space, (2024).
The artist writes, "recently, ChatGPT has received a lot of attention. The web-based platform is designed to provide human-like conversational experiences. Will this new technology change the world? This painting presents an AI robot with a face resembling a human’s. Its right eye is the sun, its left eye is the moon, while its mouth is a flying constellation made from a human body. On its cheeks, we see a bolt of lightning, the Southern Cross, traces of cosmic rays and antenna interfaces. On its forehead are the solar system and Cygnus.
This painting attempts to depict a world of artificial intelligence in which inorganic life has replaced organic life. Leaving Earth, the ark of mankind moves into space, looking for a new home."
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A big congratulations Guan Wei 🥂
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The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2024 exhibition is open from 8 June to 8 September at The Art Gallery of New South Wales.
IMAGE: Guan Wei, Off to the Space, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 162 x 306 cm (12 panels).
GUAN WEI Commission for Vivid Sydney
VIVID SYDNEY
Guan Wei has been commissioned to transform the Museum of Contemporary Art's façade during Vivid Sydney, in a nightly light projection.
Experience Sea, Sand and Stars, displayed on the Museum's façade every evening during Vivid Sydney until 11pm, beginning this Friday, 24 May.
GUAN WEI: Sea, Sand and Stars
📅 24 May - 15 June 2024, 6–11pm daily
📍Museum of Contemporary Art Australia |
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Guan Wei's Sea, Sand and Stars will feature twinkling stars, ocean waves and marvellous creatures, taking audiences from the depths of the ocean to the constellations in the night sky
Over the last 35 years, influential Chinese Australian artist Guan Wei has created artworks that consider what it means to be human, drawing on his experiences and observations of life in Australia and China. The artist has worked with Spinifex Group to create his first light projection, which follows the course of a day, beginning with the appearance of the morning star.
GUO JIAN & GUAN WEI Feature in Upcoming Panel Discussion at Nation Art School
Tides of Change: In Our Time Artists' Panel Discussion
Join us for an engaging conversation with artists Guan Wei and Guo Jian, both renowned Chinese-born artists living in Australia, as they discuss their significant bodies of work featured in the exhibition "IN OUR TIME."
They'll be joined by Dr. Luise Guest, a writer, curator, and education specialist, and Professor Jing Han, Director of the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts & Culture at the University of Western Sydney.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
12 - 1 PM
GUO JIAN and GUAN WEI featured in "In Our Time" at the National Art School, Sydney
GUO JIAN and GUAN WEI shine bright in "IN OUR TIME: FOUR DECADES OF ART FROM CHINA AND BEYOND THE GEOFF RABY COLLECTION" at the National Art School in partnership with La Trobe Art Institute. This exhibition is on display until March 30th.
Over a 35-year period beginning in the mid-1980s, Australian economist and diplomat Dr Geoff Raby AO assembled an outstanding art collection of artworks by more than 75 artists working in both China and in Australia, as members of the Chinese diaspora. "In Our Time" presents a selection of works from this special collection, now part of the La Trobe University Art Collection.
'GUAN WEI: Out of The Ordinary' Opens at Vermillion Art
Guan Wei, 'Ocean 1', 2013, bronze, edition of 5, 35 x 49 x 33 cm.
'GUAN WEI: Out of the Ordinary' has just opened at Vermillion Art in Sydney.
This exhibition is a selection of Guan Wei’s work over the last 12 years. In the ancient Chinese calendar, 12 years is one Ji (一纪 ). It also refers to sufficient time for a major journey. Guan Wei has imbued his works with a profound sense of mystery and wonder. He entices us to go beyond the ordinary, with him on this brilliant odyssey.
The exhibition continues until 16 March.
GUAN WEI's 'Big Mouse Kingdom' on display at Chau Chak Wing Museum
Guan Wei, 'Big Mouse Kingdom', 2005, acrylic on canvas.
GUAN WEI's major work, 'Big Mouse Kingdom', is currently on display at Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, as part of 'The Sherman Gift'.
In 2021, the Museum received a generous gift of artworks from the collection of Dr Gene Sherman AM and the late Brian Sherman AM. The exhibition features these works and explores Gene and Brian's life of cultural engagement.
SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY 2022
Welcome to ARC ONE at SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY
From today will be showing a selection of major artworks from some of Australia's most significant contemporary practitioners, including PAT BRASSINGTON, LYNDELL BROWN / CHARLES GREEN, PETER DAVERINGTON, MURRAY FREDERICKS, JANET LAURENCE, HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT, DANI MARTI, JULIE RRAP, IMANTS TILLERS, GUAN WEI, CATHERINE WOO, and JOHN YOUNG. We are also proud to be presenting, for the first time, the work of internationally acclaimed artist DESMOND LAZARO.
Our booth is showcasing brand new artworks, alongside some of the most iconic works from ARC ONE Gallery, in celebration of these artists and their significant contribution to contemporary art in this country.
GUAN WEI and GUO JIAN at BENDIGO ART GALLERY
Guan Wei, Water view no. 15 2011, synthetic polymer paint on canvas. La Trobe University, Geoff Raby Collection of Chinese Art. Image courtesy the artist and ARC ONE © the artist. Photo: Jia De
GUAN WEI and GUO JIAN are included in the forthcoming exhibition ‘In Our Time: Four decades of art from China and beyond - the Geoff Raby Collection’ curated by Latrobe Art Institute.
Opening on 20 August, the exhibition features 70 pieces from the collection of Australian economist and diplomat Dr Geoff Raby AO, with works that address a range of themes from urban life, Chinese philosophy and cultural difference to social justice, human rights and nationhood.
GUAN WEI on display at THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA
GUAN WEI, 2002, Synthetic polymer paint on 48 canvases, 317 x 913 cm.
GUAN WEI’s beautiful painting ‘Dow: Island’ (2002) is now on display in The National Gallery of Australia’s Australian art collection.
“When people are thinking about global things they must draw a map. The map is very important to human thinking . . . The work is like a big history that includes ancient animals and human migrations and the situation of refugees in the present.” – Guan Wei
GUAN WEI and GUO JIAN in 'Our Journeys | Our Stories'
GUAN WEI and GUO JIAN feature in a new exhibition 'Our Journeys| Our Stories' at Hurstville Museum and Gallery.
The exhibition explores the Chinese migration history of the Georges River area, interweaving social and cultural history with the work of contemporary Chinese-Australian artists.
Available to view until 24 July 2022
GUAN WEI invited to participate in the Gold Award 2022
Image: Portrait of Guan Wei, 2006, for his mural painting at Powerhouse Museum Sydney.
Congratulations to GUAN WEI, who is one of eight artists who have been invited to participate in the Gold Award 2022, Queensland’s richest art prize. The artists invited in the Gold Award 2022 will form one of the exhibitions scheduled to coincide with the official opening of the newly constructed Rockhampton Museum of Art.
The artworks will be on public display from 25 February 2022 to 15 May 2022, with the winner announced 26 February.
The Gold Award is a joint initiative of the Rockhampton Museum of Art Philanthropy Board, Rockhampton Museum of Art and Rockhampton Regional Council.
