Maleonn

Maleonn was born in 1972, Shanghai, China. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University in 1995, majored in Graphic design. As a famous photographer, he is one of the most influential Chinese contemporary artists, and one of the representatives of Chinese conceptual photography. Using mixed media such as photography, painting, puppet, video, and installations, he presents whimsical universes where wild imaginations serve metaphorical narratives, often with irony.

From 1995 to 2003, he worked as an advertising art director and won two gold awards at the China International Advertising Festival. In 2004, he returned to the field of art, creating graphic art by the media of photography, as well as drawing and installation art. In 2012, he launched the public art project “Mobile Photo Studio”. He loaded his photo studio into two minivans and spent 10 months travelling through 35 cities across the country. He used the form of a temporary photo studio to take pictures of 1,600 strangers for free, causing a nationwide sensation. The event has led to a Internation-wide attention to this very artist, and the heated discussion on the Internet is still going on.

From 2014 to 2017, in order to pay tribute to his father suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and his life as a theatre director, the artist spent three years directing a large-scale drama “Papa’s Time Machine” featuring life-size puppets. The play became the first Chinese work to be selected for the drama unit of the International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA).

In 2020, the documentary “Our Time Machine”, which was filmed in his drama creation, was nominated for the Best Documentary of the 30th Gotham Independent Film Awards. In 2021, “Our Time Machine” was nominated for Best Cultural Documentary of the Emmy Awards, and for Best Documentary of the Gotham Independent Film award.

Maleonn’s works have been widely displayed globally through solo exhibitions and group exhibitions, and won the Australian International Digital Art Award (IDDA); the 4th Spider International Black and White Photography Award for Outstanding Achievement of the Year and the Art Photography Award; the Gold Award for Outstanding Works in the Super Tour Photography Exhibition; the Gold Award for Wide Format Photography at the ND Photography Awards in Poland; the Silver Award for Photography at the A DEGINE AWARD International Design Award in Italy, and many other international awards. In 2019, won the Golden Panda Photography Award of the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Image Art: China’s Top Ten Photographic Artists. His works were selected into “History of Chinese Contemporary Art” written by Lu Peng, and “History of Contemporary Chinese Photography” written by Gu Zheng.

Maleonn now lives and works in Shanghai, China.