Painting Zhang

View Zhang Xiaogang Artist Exhibitions and Paintings

Zhang Xiaogang’s paintings engage with the notion of identity within the Chinese culture of collectivism. Basing his work around the concept of ‘family’ –immediate, extended, and societal – Zhang’s portraits depict an endless genealogy of imagined forebears and progenitors, each unnervingly similar and distinguished by minute difference.

Zhang Xiaogang is very much a product of the Chinese art academy system, and out of this heritage he has developed an iconography and identified a special sensibility that in many ways define this era. Because Zhang’s footing is within the academy system, therefore the system may also claim credit for his success. So it follows that Zhang should be looked upon as a paradigmatic success model of the Chinese art world.

Bloodline and Amnesia and Memory, the two series that have made Zhang’s reputation in the 1990s, focus on portraiture, a subject underlined by concerns around the visual portrayal of the Chinese figure, especially as it involves the adaptation of western classical painting technique to local needs.Often painted in black and white, Zhang’s portraits translate the language of photography into paint. Drawing from the generic quality of formal photo studio poses and greyscale palette, Zhang’s figures are nameless and timeless: a series of individual histories represented within the strict confines of formula. The occasional splotches of colour which interrupt his images create aberrant demarcations, reminiscent of birth marks, aged film, social stigma, or a lingering sense of the sitter’s self assertion.

Incorporating the aesthetic of traditional Chinese charcoal drawing, Zhang’s style wavers between the exaggeration of animation and stoic flatness. Muted and compliant, Zhang’s extended family convey individual identity through their unalterable physical features: too big heads, tiny hands, long noses, and subtle alterations in hairstyle give clues to intimate characteristics and stifled emotions. These dream-like distortions give a complex psychological dimension to Zhang’s work, heightening the tension of regulated claustrophobia, and initiating suggestive narrative readings.

Conclusions:

Zhang Xiaogang’s art has become a canon of contemporary Chinese oil painting, and its merits depend very much on the fact that he has found new solutions to harnessing western classical academic technique (a standard in Chinese academies) to turn it into an indigenous artistic language.

What to Do Next…

If you want any information about Zhang Xiaogang or looking for his paintings please visit us on http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/zhang_xiaogang.htm

About the Author

View Zhang Xiaogang paintings, biography, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and resource of Zhang Xiaogang artist. View art online at The Saatchi Gallery – London contemporary art gallery. Zhang Xiaogang

Hua Xin (Painted Heart) by Jane Zhang (pinyin lyrics)

Sunflower $19.12 Sunflower is the story of the Zhang family in Beijing father, mother and son across three decades, centering on the tensions and misunderstandings between father and son. Nine-year-old Xiangyang is having the time of his life, free of adult supervision until the day he meets the father he can hardly remember. Having spent years away, he returns with strong ideas about his son learning to draw. But…

A Soul Haunted by Painting $29.95 The mesmerizing Gong Li stars in this true story of a Chinese painter, Pan Yuliang (Gong Li), whose work was celebrated in Paris yet rejected at home. At fifteen years old, she was sold into prostitution. Her life changes when she marries with a high official. Through her husband, she finds expression in western painting, and furthers her studies in Paris. Although internationally acclaimed as an …

Dong (Institutional Use) $295.00 China’s greatest living filmmaker Jia Zhangke (PLATFORM, THE WORLD) travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand, meeting everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil.Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by China’s Three Gorges Dam project. In DONG, Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed …

Official Licensed design Chinese Artist Xiao Bai Iphone 4s Snap on Case with Soft Touch -The Warrior Princess Limited Edition $24.99 Glamorous Tattoo Illustrations by Zhang Xiaobai Prounounced “Zhow Bye”. Xiaobai is a talented illustrator based in Beijing, China. She graduated in Xubeihong Art College of People’s University and has chosen to pursue her dream in the arts. Xiaobai creates tattoo illustrations inspired by classical Chinese women. Each illustration is a beautiful story. Decorated with beautiful artwork, these cove…

The Yin/Yang of Painting: A Contemporary Master Reveals the Secrets of Painting Found in Ancient Chinese Philosophy $21.95 Through the harmonious balancing of opposites, the ancient Chinese philosophy of yin yang is beautifully applied to the art of painting in an illuminating, results-oriented instructional for artists of all levels. According to this time-honored system, successful art is based on balanced energies and the control of contrasting elements within a work. This remarkably simple approach is presented …

The Lady in the Painting, Expanded Edition: Simplified Characters (Far Eastern Publications Series) $22.98 A well-known chinese folktale is retold here within the limits of an elementary 300 character vocabulary. Yale and Pinyin romanization with Traditional characters. An excellent text for beginning Chinese students….

An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 $49.86 Hailed as a groundbreaking text in Chinese Studies, An Anthology of Chinese Literature brings together representative works from the first millenium B.C. to the end of the imperial system in 1911.This collection of over 600 pieces, translated with great clarity and sense of the original, presents the tradition in historical and aesthetic context. Moving roughly chronologically through the traditi…