Ni Zhiqi 倪志琪 (b. 1957) lives and works in Shanghai, China. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, in 1994, as part of an early generation of Chinese abstract artists to have trained in Belgium. Before pursuing his art education in Europe, Ni had already been actively involved in China's '85 New Wave' art movement during the 1980s, a formative period that shaped the experimental sensibility underlying his practice, in which material itself is treated as a vehicle for artistic expression.

Ni's work is distinguished by an intuitive, material-driven approach that draws together Eastern and Western sensibilities. Canvas, fabric, handmade paper, thread and found or unconventional materials are layered and reworked to create compositions of considerable tactile and textural depth, in which chance and accident are embraced as integral to the creative process. Across long-running series such as 'Portrait', 'Window', 'Memory of the Book' and 'Vacuum', his work explores memory, perception and the tension between isolation and connection. The 'Vacuum' series, developed during the pandemic, marked a turn towards abstracted, deeply internalised colour fields, evoking atmosphere and emotional resonance rather than depicting specific landscapes. 

Ni Zhiqi has exhibited extensively in China and internationally since the mid-1980s. The latest showing include at a major survey exhibition of ‘Shanghai and Paris Abstract Art’ at Shanghai Art Museum (2026). He has held several solo exhibitions with Pearl Lam Galleries during 2018 to 2025, Hushen Art Museum, Shanghai (2024), and Today Art Museum, Beijing (2021). His works have been regularly presented at international art fairs such as Art Cologne, Germany (2022), Singapore Art Fairs (2023), and several editions of the West Bund Art & Design Fair in China with major commissions (2017–2024). In his early career, Ni exhibited in Antwerp and Brussels after graduating, then took part in numerous touring exhibitions, including at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) (1997), Los Angeles, United States (1989), and Osaka and Kobe, Japan, alongside presentations at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2003), and Shanghai Art Museum, China (2005).