ZHANG JI

For Zhang, art creation is a process of self-meditation, akin to a personal practice of “investigating natures and principles and rectifying the mind”. He focuses on extracting motifs from ancient religious architecture and references them through abstract painting, replacing brushstrokes with an anti-painting language of paint relief. Through experimentation, he distils a form of painting that defies conventional painting practices.

In this way, the artist must strive to suppress his subjective will over the picture in the painting process to pursue a state of “selflessness”. Yet, he cannot relinquish control entirely so as not to risk the painting becoming unconscious scribbling. Throughout this process, he neither treats objects and materials solely as tools for expressing personal ideas nor views his works as merely projections of one’s own spirit. Nor does he regard them as pure material objects. Hence, spiritual meditation serves to balance these aspects, becoming a crucial factor in reaching the “threshold”.

Zhang largely employs oil paint and uses a specially designed pneumatic injector to create a sense of thickness that is akin to low reliefs in his paintings. Selected motifs as the smallest image units are repetitively arranged into larger hand-drawn subjects, which are then scanned and projected onto the canvas. Zhang then holds the pneumatic injector filled with paint and outlines and fills the lines in the picture until the entire canvas is covered. Throughout the rigorous creation process, the artist upholds an almost ascetic craftsmanship, persistently pursuing hands-on embodiment.

The series The Skin of Truth on show in this exhibition began in 2011. It originated from the artist’s early memories of intricate decorative reliefs in churches that he drew as a child. This inspiration was later expanded to encompass ancient religious art from around the world, such as mosques, Catholic churches, Hindu temples, and Buddhist temples. The artist extracts motifs from these architectural sites, referencing them through abstract painting. Zhang visited numerous religious architectural places of interest to enhance his art creation through firsthand sensory experiences. Many of the works showcased in this exhibition are derived from decorative motifs he photographed or sketched on-site in Spain. Some of the architecture Zhang visited include the Great Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra palace and cathedral in Granada, the Alcázar and Palacio de las Dueñas in Seville.

Ultima, the other series of works in the exhibition, reflects the artist’s self-evolution from The Skin of Truth towards absolute abstraction. It signifies a transition from an emphasis on pictoriality to an exploration of the underlying motivational logic behind painting. Nonetheless, the imagery depicted in the paintings serves as an illusion; the free state and meditative realm attained by the artist in the everyday creation processes are more significant than the images perceived by the eye. Throughout the creation of this series, the artist strives to capture the logic of motivation behind painting to the largest extent possible. This logic is not derived from reasoning or argumentation, but rather emanates from personal experiences, intuitive insights, and a holistic understanding of the world.