ZHAO YANG

”‘Rage’ is a subliminal state of irrationality, a state that discards judgement and all standards as if being naked in nature. It is the state that I always aspire to achieve in my painting. This state emerges from ‘rage’, associates with fearlessness, overcomes obstacles, and eventually reaches a greater depth. Merely as a kind of tonality with free movement, it has nothing to do with ‘nothingness’ or ‘somethingness’, and is beyond the boundaries and undefinable. The rhythm, passion, impulsion and inspiration in the creation process, as well as the trance and rage at some point, integrate with one another and make me lose myself.”

In the early “Hunting” period, Zhao Yang compared painting with the primitive relationship between man and nature. Lately, he yearns for more “destructiveness”, something more anxious and chaotic on the canvas. The courage of a warrior in battle is demonstrated through his inherent fearlessness with indistinguishable strength, agility and energy. When faced with a powerful adversary, he even needs an uncontrolled rage to forget his own existence in exchange for energy beyond the boundaries of his body.

Zhao Yang was born in 1970 in Siping, Jilin Province, China. He graduated from the China Academy of Art in 1995 and currently lives and works in Hangzhou. Major exhibitions include: Zhao Yang & Jin Shan: Fall into a Trance, How Art Museum, Shanghai（2020); Zhao Yang: Roma Is a Lake, ShanghART Beijing (2019); New Art History: 2000-2018 Chinese Contemporary Art, MOCA Yinchuan, Yinchuan (2019); Zhao Yang: ALAYA, chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai (2018); Zhao Yang: In Between, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, TNUA, Taipei (2016); ‘Zao’ by ZHAO Yang, ShanghART Shanghai (2016); China 8, Contemporary Art from China at the Rhine and Ruhr, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany (2015); Une histoire: art, architecture, design des années 1980 à nos jours, Collections contemporaines, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2015) etc. Work by the artist is held in major international museum collections, including Centre Pompidou, chi K11 Art Museum and TANK Shanghai.