Gao Xiaowu is a Chinese artist born in 1976 in Sanming, Fujian Province, who lives and works in Beijing. He studied sculpture at the Xiamen Art Academy, graduating in 1999, and completed his training in the sculpture department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Beijing, in 2004.

Gao makes what he calls "popular art" — sculpture for ordinary people — using rounded, cartoon-like figures to deliver gentle, humorous social commentary. His best-known works set the tone: the bowing, over-deferential figures of his Standard series and the balloon-bodied men and women of City Dreams, straining to fly on wings too small to lift them. Where those earlier series satirised urban life, social pressure and modern absurdity, recent bodies of work such as Reborn and Shared Environment turn toward ecology and the spirit, imagining a renewed harmony between people and nature.

Gao has exhibited internationally — including the Future Pass exhibition at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the Beijing Biennale (2005) — and held solo exhibitions including Soft Violence (Beijing, 2011) and Rebirth (Shanghai, 2022). Selected for the 9th National Art Exhibition in 1999, he later received the Hurun Special Contribution for Art (2014) and was named Robb Report China Artist of the Year (2017). His work is held in the White Rabbit Collection, Sydney, and in collections including K11 and Beijing Parkview Green, alongside many corporate and private holdings.