Born in Liaoning Province, China, Yuan Fangzhou came to Japan in 2018 after graduating from Tsinghua University, majoring in Arts and Crafts. Yuan have got PHD. Degree from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2024, and lives and works in Ibaraki. He has been showing his works not only in Japan but also in China, Korea, the Czech Republic, Bangladesh, and other locations around the globe. Yuan’s work is based on his philosophy of the relationship between people, objects and nature, and is influenced by Eastern schools of thought such as post-minimalism and Buddhism. Focusing on glass, Yuan uses a variety of media and techniques including sculpture, painting and video.
Major exhibitions include "The 50th Anniversary, Glass '21 in Japan" (Hillside Forum, Tokyo), "The nonentity within the entity" (Decameron, Tokyo), "The 24th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art" (Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, Japan), and the "2020 ASYAAF & Hidden Artists Festival" (Hongik Museum of Art/Korea).
Other awards include the 4th and 5th Kuma Foundation Creator Scholarship, the Harada Prize Scholarship Fund at Tokyo University of the Arts, and the Excellence Prize at the 14th Oita Asian Sculpture Exhibition.
Yuan has been using the material of glass for nine years, he mainly focused on kiln work, a technique of shaping glass by heating cold glass in an electric furnace. Based on Yuan's respect for the natural feature of glass material, his work shows his interest in the accidental forms created by natural accidents during glass-making processes such as the transformation of the material and the force of gravity. Yuan’s intermingles with multiple media allow him to observe the world around him in various ways. Based on his own memories and experiences, transformed the glass material into the intermediate between natural objects and man-made objects, wrapping reality with his own language, and creating intriguing viewpoints for the viewers.