Yun-Fei Ji, b. 1963 in Beijing (CN), lives and works in New Jersey (US).​

Yun-Fei Ji is a storyteller who takes historical and present-day events and the lives of ordinary people as the subjects of his work. Accounts of displacement, natural disasters and corrupt authorities in villages are turned into semi-fictional narratives. Ji paints, according to traditional Eastern art-making practice, on handmade rice paper with translucent ink or paint based on natural pigments. His peculiar draughtsmanship draws on centuries-old techniques, including calligraphy. His subjects evoke traditional Chinese landscape painting: figures and scenes recall tales and epics from Chinese folklore and history. His work echoes the oeuvre of the ancient Dynasty Masters, whose paintings combined compositional and technical brilliance with the expression of sorrow and melancholy, conveying an underlying political message. Ji depicts the internal difficulties of Chinese culture – the human tragedies caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, for instance, or the failure of the communist utopia – while at the same time expanding his focus by referring to the societal disruptions following Hurricane Katrina, the invasion of Iraq and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. By borrowing past events to comment on present problematic developments, the artist creates particularly layered works illustrating both a personal and symbolic fantasy and a more global, existential human tragedy and beauty.​​

Yun-Fei Ji has had solo exhibitions at Pratt Institute (New York), Cleveland Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University (Waltham), The Hilliard Art Museum (Lafayette), Honolulu Art Museum, UMCA (Amherst), Richard E. Peeler Art Center (Greencastle), Krannert Art Museum (Champaign), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Worcester Art Museum and ICA Philadelphia. Yun-Fei Ji has participated in the Whitney Biennial in New York (2002), the Lyon Biennale (2011), the Biennale of Sydney (2012) and the Shanghai Biennale (2014). His work has featured in group shows at The Drawing Center (New York), British Museum (London), MoMA (New York), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Marta Herford, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Vancouver Art Gallery, S.M.A.K. (Ghent), Menshikov Palace/State Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg), Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon) and FRAC Picardie (Amiens).