Zhou Yilun was born in 1983 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in eastern China. He graduated in 2006 from the oil-painting department of the China Academy of Art. He lives and works in Hangzhou.
Every one of Zhou’s artworks is formed from the same bricolage. They are the sum of stretcher, wood and canvas, which are painted, deconstructed and constructed again. Images of basketball heroes become deities, which in turn become the scaffolding and skin of his painted sculptures, torn down and built back up with the same materials, again and again, so that the elements that once existed as ornament are now integral to the identity of each piece. His works are impossible monuments to the unnecessary yet beautiful feats of the human machine.
His solo and group exhibitions include: The Monkey on Horseback, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania (2016); Parallel Times, Inna Art Space, Hangzhou (2017); Marie Montana, Beijing Commune (2017); After Sunset, Galeria Luisa Wang, Paris (2018); The Post Southern Song Dynasty, an exhibition of works featuring the Martin Goya Business artist collective at the KWM Art Center, Beijing (2018); Ornament and Crime, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2019); and Stuck Inside of Mobile with Memphis Blues Again, Beijing Commune (2019).