LUMINOSITY: Zhang Zhaohui 光亮——张朝晖个人作品展

Red Gate Gallery is proud to present Luminosity: Zhang Zhaohui Solo Exhibition, Peng Feng serving as the Art Director. The exhibition will run from June 6 to July 5, 2026. The opening and Footprints performance art, will take place from 3 pm to 5 pm on Saturday, June 6, 2026.

The distinctive feature of Zhang Zhaohui’s ink paintings is the portrayal of light. This is not abstract or realistic, but rather an evocative, spiritual form of artistic expression. Whether within the cultural context of ink painting or in the context of contemporary art, these works present a unique and distinct personal artistic vision. Therefore, the theme of this exhibition is Luminosity: Art needs to shine, bringing warmth and showcasing a bright future.

Over the past four decades in the context of Chinese art, Zhang Zhaohui’s artistic journey has exhibited a unique, progressive, and deepening artistic trajectory. This experience encompasses extensive involvement in various aspects of the art system, including twenty years of work in art museums, field research into folk arts, art criticism, independent curating, art historical studies, artbrokerage, and international art exchanges.  Over the past two decades, he has engaged in diverse artistic practices and explorations, including performance, installation, photography, and innovative and transformative experiments in ink painting, which have had a significant impact. This exhibition is his third solo show at Red Gate Gallery, showcasing a new facet of Zhang Zhaohui’s exploration of ink painting since the Pandemic.

Unlike many contemporary explorers of ink painting, he gradually integrated his rich and diverse life experiences and artistic expertise over four decades into his works. This includes his traditional calligraphy and painting practice during his childhood, his experiences living in Impiral gardens such as the Summer Palace and Xiangshan Park in Beijing during his early years, his study of ancient Chinese material culture at the Museum Studies Program of Nankai University, his extensive exposure to various art forms while working at the National Art Museum of China, his nationwide fieldwork into folk art in the early 1990s, as well as his exposure to contemporary Japanese and Korean art and minimalist, conceptual, and land art from Europe and America when he studied in New York City in his early thirties. These diverse, intensive and vibrant life experiences and artistic career gradually permeated and engulfed his artistic thoughts, inspiration, and explorations, manifesting themselves in his diverse yet continuous and genealogical works of ink art.

Zhang Zhaohui is a long-termist artist who has made significant contributions by integrating light, space, and structure into ink painting. He has developed an artistic lineage centered on light and lines, water, and ink, and has effectively transformed the essence of traditional Chinese aesthetics and brushwork expression into contemporary context and artistic vocabulary that can be shared internationally. This has gradually opened up new frontiers for contemporary ink.

红门画廊荣幸推出《光亮——张朝晖个人作品展》，本次展览由彭锋担任艺术总监。展览时间为2026年6月6日至7月5日。展览开幕暨“足迹”行为艺术将于2026年6月6日星期六下午3点至5点进行。

张朝晖水墨作品的突出的特征是光的呈现，不是抽象的，也不是写实的，而是意象性的，精神性的艺术表达；无论是在水墨的文化场域，还是在当代艺术的语境，都是独特而鲜明的个人化艺术面貌。所以这个展览的主题是光亮：艺术需要发光，带来温暖，展现明亮的前景。

在过去四十年的中国艺术现场，张朝晖的艺术经历展现出独特的，不断递进和深化的艺术轨迹，这个履历包括前二十年的艺术博物馆工作，民间美术田野调查，艺术评论，独立策展，艺术史研究，艺术品经纪，国际艺术交流等广泛的艺术体制工作经历；更包括最近二十年的多样艺术实践和探索，包括行为艺术，装置艺术，摄影和有广泛影响力的水墨艺术创新和转型。这个展览是他在红门画廊的第三次个展，展现了疫情以来张朝晖水墨艺术探索的新面貌。

与众多当代水墨艺术探索者不同的是，他逐步将几十年丰富而多样的人生经历和艺术经验融入到水墨艺术作品中，包括少儿时代开始的传统书画练习，早年在北京颐和园香山等古典园林的生活经历，南开大学博物馆专业的中国古代物质文化史学习，在中国美术馆工作的广泛艺术涉猎，九十年代初的民间美术田野调查，以及三十岁来纽约读书时接触到的日韩当代艺术和欧美极简主义，观念艺术和大地艺术。这些丰富，多样而活鲜的生活经历和艺术经验都逐步浸透到他的艺术思考和探索中，并在他多样但富有连续性和谱系化的水墨作品中渐渐浮现出来。

张朝晖是一位长期主义艺术探索者，他的成就在于将光，空间和结构融入水墨艺术中，并展开了以光与线，水和墨为核心的艺术谱系，有效地将中国传统审美精华和笔墨表达转型为可国际分享的当代感受和艺术语汇，逐步打开了当代水墨艺术的新界面。

Zhang Zhaohui’s freehand abstract ink works extend, transform and transcend the traditional techniques and aesthetics of Chinese freehand brushwork. He unfolds brush-and-ink imagery through spatial composition and structural arrangement. While retaining the essence of traditional brush art, his works expand the expressive power of this age-old culture in contemporary society and carry forward the spirit of traditional Chinese culture.

— Peng Feng, Art Theorist, Former Dean of the School of Arts, Peking University

Zhang Zhaohui’s exploration in ink art has addressed the predicament of traditional brushwork in modern times. The debate over ink painting is not about abandoning brush and ink amid stylistic changes. Instead, the core lies in transforming traditional brush language into a contemporary artistic vocabulary — a notion fully validated by his artistic practice.

— Liu Xiaochun, Late Renowned Art Critic, Former Research Fellow, Chinese National Academy of Arts

If the light in Li Keran’s paintings shines onto the canvas from the outside, the “light” in Zhang Zhaohui’s works emanates from behind the picture plane, representing a distinctive artistic experiment. In this regard, his exploration of light and shadow differs from that of past Chinese painters, which is what I admire most about his creations.

— Shui Tianzhong, Late Renowned Art Critic, Former Research Fellow and Director of the Fine Arts Research Institute, Chinese National Academy of Arts

What makes these works remarkable is the complete absence of figurative representation on the canvas. Eternal natural structures, perpetual physical laws, cosmic order and harmony, together with the cyclic movement of weather, seasons, water flows and life cycles governed by these principles, have long been core themes of Chinese ink art. Zhang Zhaohui, however, reinterprets all these elements from a contemporary perspective.

— Richard Vine, Editor-in-Chief of Art in America

Though equipped with profound knowledge of art history and art theories, Zhang Zhaohui has never set for himself the mission or obligation to “complete the contemporary transformation of ink art”. Instead, he has always consciously rooted himself in the extensive lineage of ink painting language, perpetually discovering the boundless charm inherent in this art form.

— Yang Weimin, Ink Art Critic & Curator

To some viewers, Zhang Zhaohui’s new ink paintings have seemed at odds with China’s millennium-old ink painting tradition ever since their debut. Thus, they have garnered little praise from the domestic ink art circle, whose practitioners regard his brushwork, composition rules and especially spatial layout as unconventional and iconoclastic.

— Fang Zhenning, Renowned Art Critic & Curator

Zhang Zhaohui’s ink works feature pure rationality, integrating Eastern and Western aesthetics while echoing the essence of ancient and modern art. They reveal that the language of contemporary ink art holds endless fresh visual possibilities.

— Shi Jianbang, Art Critic

“张朝晖的写意抽象系列水墨作品是对传统笔墨写意的延伸，转变和超越。他将笔墨意象在空间和结构中展开，在展现传统笔墨精髓的同时，拓展了笔墨文化在当代社会的表现力，并弘扬传统文化精神。”

——彭锋，艺术理论家，北京大学艺术学院首任院长

“张朝晖的水墨艺术探索解决了笔墨在当今社会的困境。水墨画不是形态转变要不要笔墨的问题，关键是笔墨必须转型，从传统为当代艺术语汇，他的艺术实践证明了这一点。”

——刘骁纯，已故著名艺术评论家，中国艺术研究院研究员

“李可染绘画中的光是从画面外照到画面内的话，张朝晖画中的“光”是从画面背后透出来的，这是一种新的尝试。从这一点来说，和以往中国画家对光影的关注和实验是有所不同的，这也是我比较欣赏的。”

——水天中，已故著名艺术评论家，原中国艺术研究院研究员，美术研究所所长

“画面上没有任何实际的再现性描述，是这批作品的重要性所在。永恒的自然结构，以及持续不断的物理上的对应法则，即宇宙的秩序与和谐，再加上遵循这些规律和法则周而复始地瞬间运行的天气，季节，水流，和生命周期，这些都是中国水墨艺术的关键，但张朝晖的作品都被他赋予当代的视角。”

——里查德·维恩，《美国艺术》主编

虽然具有深厚的美术史和美术理论功底，但自始至终，张朝晖从未给自己划定一个“完成水墨艺术当代性转化”的使命或责任，只是一直自觉地将自己嵌入水墨语言的庞大谱系中，不断发现水墨自身无尽之魅力。

——杨维民，水墨艺术评论家，策展人

在一些人看来，张朝晖的新水墨从一开始问世，就和中国有着上千历史的水墨画传统格格不入，因此也很少有来自中国水墨画界赞扬的声音，认为无论是笔法还是章法，尤其是构图，都属于一种离经叛道。

——方振宁，著名艺术评论家，策展人

读画家张朝晖的水墨作品，纯粹理性，贯通中西，暗合古今，令人感觉现代水墨语言潜藏着无穷崭新的视觉可能。

——石建邦，艺术评论家