Sui Jianguo

One of the most important contemporary Chinese sculptors working today, Sui Jianguo was born 1956, Qingdao, Shandong Province. He was educated at the Shandong Institute of Fine Arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In early 2000, Sui was one of the first artists to move his studio to the famous 798 art district and he is often credited with popularizing the area. Early in his career he used rocks as the material for abstract sculptures but the late 1990s, he shifted gears, adopting two motifs for which he's now widely known: dinosaurs and the Mao jacket. Sui Jianguo has been exhibited internationally and his works are in many notable institutional collections. In 2011 he received Martell's Artist of the Year award. Sui Jianguo is based in Beijing, where he heads the sculpture department at China's most famous art school, the Central Academy of Fine Arts.