Yang Bodu

Biography

Yang Bodu was born in Tianjin in 1986. She received her BFA from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 2008 and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2012. During her studies at PAFA, she won the Justine Cretella Memorial Scholarship in 2011 and the Fellowship Trust Prize for her presentation at the Annual Student Exhibition in 2012. In 2021, Yang was featured in The Artsy Vanguard, and she also won the “Young Artist of the Year” of ARTnews in 2025.

Yang's work revolves around what she describes as a “spiritual artscape.” Through a practice centered on painting, she explores architectural spaces—museums, galleries, and other art institutions—merging these constructed forms with imagery of grottoes, caves, and jungles to create abstract, spacious, and idealized spatial narratives.

In recent years, Yang has shifted toward creating immersive painted environments—what she calls “architectural moments”—born from the interplay of light, shadow, and structure. Within these enigmatic spaces, her work navigates the ambiguous boundaries between private emotion and public space, between creation and contemplation, between seeing and being seen.