Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1974 Xinjiang, China

Year of Migration to the UK: 1997

Biography

Painter, curator, and multimedia artist Silia Ka Tung was born in Xinjiang, Western China, in 1974. Tung’s father, an acupuncturist and herbalist, ran a traditional medicine shop. Throughout her childhood, she recalls being surrounded by herbs and learning to understand the world through the balance of energies, the body, and nature. The family later moved to Hong Kong, where Tung's environment shifted from a rural background to the eclectic, international influences of the evolving city. Tung’s father encouraged her to ground herself in traditional Chinese art first, so her art education began with a Diploma in Oil Painting from the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, China, in 1996/7. In 1997, Tung immigrated to London, England, to pursue a BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, followed by a year at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. She then went on to earn a Masters in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art (university of London) in 2002, where she was taught by the artist, Tess Jaray, who herself has emigre roots. Tung has been based in London since 2002.

Tung’s art practice is multidisciplinary, embracing sculpture, textiles, and her core training in painting. It embodies cross-cultural inspirations, merging Chinese and Greek mythology with Japanese manga, Hindu philosophy, and Korean media. Tung’s approach explores the natural world and, more recently, features narratives from traditional Chinese folk stories, channelled through Chinese medicinal wisdom and religion. The work takes form as contained contemporary dreamscapes, where innocence merges with an interconnected spiritual and energetic world. Tung distinguishes between her textile process, which she describes as collaborative, lengthy, planned, and meticulous, and her painting, which is spontaneous and familiar.

Tung has exhibited worldwide, both as a solo artist and in group shows, and has been featured in numerous international art festivals. Garden of Heavenly Delights, Tung’s solo exhibition at Mimmo Scognamiglio in Rome in 2023, created a demure, playful world parallel to Bosch’s earthly delights. Floppy-eared giraffes and narcissistic ostriches coexist with the 'Tea of the Madmen', a tea party set within a magic mushroom ring set on springy moss. At Glow Shenzhen International Art & Lighting Festival (2020), Tung reinvented Hong Kong’s emblematic neon signage as a fairy ring made up of gigantic LED fungi, engaging with the magical world of Alice in Wonderland, daydreams, and reality. Her most recent solo exhibition, Green Rock and the Magic Mountain, was held at Mandy Zhang’s eponymous Marylebone space in 2024, the first female Chinese gallerist to be based in London. The exhibition immersed the viewer in the Han Dynasty's Classic of Mountains and Rivers, an illustrated collection of mythologies and bestiaries, both real and mythical. The installation was populated with Tung's signature motifs of mushrooms, which amplify themes of folklore, power, and alternative ecological networks. It also references Tung’s ongoing dialogue with anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s text, The Mushroom at the End of the World (2017).

Tung has also worked as a curator in the UK, Israel, and China. In 2018, she collaborated with fellow Xinjiang-born curator, Xiaohui Gou, formerly of Beijing’s Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, on artist Cheng Ran’s exhibition Diary of a Madman at the CCA in Tel Aviv. In 2016, Tung curated a residency for Cheng Ran and Gideon Rubin in both China and Israel. In 2007, Tung and Jerwood curator, Sara Williams, held Repetition and Sequence, which foregrounded a wave of fellow UK-based immigrant artists, including Rana Begum, Zadok Ben David, Gideon Rubin, Suki Chan, as well as her former teacher and artist Tess Jaray. Tung is represented by Mimmo Scognamiglio in Rome and Mandy Zhang in London, England. She is married to fellow artist Gideon Rubin, and the couple have three children. Silia Ka Tung lives and works in London. Her work is not represented in the UK public domain.

Related books

Silia Ku Tung : The Garden of Heavenly Delights, exh. cat. (Milan: Mimmo Scognamlio Artecontemporaneo, 2023)

Related organisations

Chelsea College of Art, London (student)
Slade School of Fine Arts, London (student)

Selected exhibitions

Green Rock and the Magic Mountain (solo exhibition), Mandy Zhang, London (2024)
Michael Rubin (curator), SQFT Gallery, London (2024)
Silia Ku Tung, The Garden of Heavenly Delights (solo exhibition), Mimmo Scognamilio, Milan, Italy (2023)
The Mushroom at the End of the World (solo exhibition), Saraceno Gallery, Rome, Italy (2022)
Cheng Ran: Diary of a Madman Triology (curator), CCA, Tel Aviv, Israel (2018)
Father, Daughter, Mother, Son (group exhibition), Canvas Contemporary, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2017)
Game of Codes (two person exhibition), Migrant Birds Space, Berlin, Germany (2016)
HuaBao/Story Telling (two person exhibition, Misthaus, Shenzhen, China (2014)
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2012)
On Paper III (group exhibition), Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France (2011)
Reversing Horizons (group exhibition), Shanghai MoCA, Shanghai, China (2007)
Follow Me (solo exhibition), Jerwood Project Space, Jerwood Space, London (2005)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Silia Ka Tung]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Silia Ka Tung artist