Lot 54

East and West Art Gallery, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist.

Song Ling, born in 1961 in Hangzhou, China, graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1984 with a degree in traditional Chinese painting. Early in his career, he participated in the influential '85 New Space Exhibition, contributing his Man · Pipeline series. A year later, in 1986, he co-founded the Pond Society—one of China's first avant-garde artist collectives—alongside Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, and others.His Meaningless Choice series made Song a notable figure in the New Wave art scene. In 1988, he moved to Melbourne, Australia, continuing his creative pursuits while also introducing Chinese contemporary art to an international audience. Over the years, he held numerous solo exhibitions in Australia and China, developing a hybrid artistic language that combined ink, acrylic, collage, and mixed media. He returned to China in 2013, establishing a new studio in Hangzhou and beginning a fresh phase of creation.Song Ling's work has been widely recognized and collected by major institutions including Artbank Australia, ANZ Bank, White Rabbit Gallery, Deakin University, and the Long Museum. His retrospective exhibitions—Ghosts in the Mirror (2014–15) and I Also Begin to Desire (2023)—traced the evolution of his creative journey from the New Wave period to his later transnational practice.Throughout his career, Song has remained committed to experimenting with form and medium, while maintaining a critical dialogue with both Chinese and Western visual traditions. His work continues to reflect the core tenets of Rational Painting—analytical observation, abstraction, and philosophical reflection—while also embracing personal memory, cultural hybridity, and contemporary concerns.