Ding Yi was born in 1962 in Shanghai, where he currently lives and works. He first graduated from the Shanghai Art and Design Academy in 1983, then from the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University in 1990. Ding’s practice encompasses painting, sculpture, spatial installation, and architecture. Beginning in the late 1980s, Ding started working primarily with the symbol “+” and its variant “x” as an expression of structure and rationality, reflecting the innate essence of all things through this pictorial imagery.