Zhang Zhaohui's new exhibition

On November 30th, 2019, Red Gate Gallery is honoured to present a new exhibition by artist Zhang Zhaohui. This exhibition incorporates 18 ink works created by the artist in 2019 which demonstrate a refreshing process of development from his previous monochrome works. This is Zhang Zhaohui's second solo exhibition with Red Gate since 2014, as well as the first public appearance of his colour ink wash abstract works. The exhibition will last until December 25.

Clinging to the proposition of light, these new works take us back to a more distant time and space of ancient geological strata, rarified light, and dense coiled masses of air. We look for concrete clues on the surface of the paintings to elaborate and verify our feelings. We joyfully discover the dark ink, the free water, blended with bright colours. Red, orange, yellow, and blue destroy the black and white formula, but it is not a conflict, more like an image of gorgeous life that has evolved from the variegated land. The flowing water and ink are transformed into rational straight lines and matrices by the artist's hand, and merge into a kind of tacit rule and order, circling round a larger space, a further existence, all of this guided by the omnipresent light.

This is the way the child of an ancient civilization views images and grasps the world around him. What does nature mean to us? Zhang Zhaohui incorporates the meaning of certain philosophies and modes of contemplation into the individual visual practice of his art, which not only brings aesthetic pleasure, but also inspires the imagination of the audience to roam freely.

Zhang Zhaohui's notes:

These recent ink wash explorations are based on over a decade of my personal art pedigree of monochrome works. By incorporating colour, I hope to effectively integrate the language of colour with the original ink wash structure, thereby enriching the expressive power of my artistic language. After all, this world of ours is a colourful one. Although colour is blended in here, I hope that my works will still seem to stretch freely and develop naturally, like life, innocent and full of vitality.

After thinking it over, I suddenly realised that ease and naturalness are humanity in nature and freedom in humanity: they represent the essence of traditional Chinese culture, as well as our intuitive experience of individual life, but we have been shielded from them for thousands of years. On this point, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, north, south, east, west, all accommodate each other, not least in this current era of the global village.

Translation © Edward McDonald @ The Compleat Translator