Mao Wu

Mao Wu is an artist based in Brussels. Refusing to confine himself to a single pictorial style, Mao Wu treats style as a form of play, interweaving elements of art history, popular culture, and amateur aesthetics.

Mao WU (b. 1997, China) currently lives and works in Brussels. He earned his bachelor's degrees from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and the École des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, followed by master's degrees from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. He was selected as a finalist for ArtContest 2024 and was an artist-in-residence at the Moonens Foundation for the 2024–2025 cycle. In his practice, Mao WU uses news photographs, existing artworks, and video sequences as visual materials. Unwilling to confine himself to a particular pictorial style, he tackles style as a game, weaving together and integrating art history, popular culture, and amateurism. Copying, pasting, reframing, erasing, or covering pre-existing images, he reinterprets the context and symbols of the original image, intervening critically and humorously in current political, cultural, and social issues.