ZHAO YANG

ShanghART is pleased to present ZHAO Yang’s solo exhibition: ZAO by ZHAO Yang, on 18^th March 2016. The exhibition will be parallel showcased in both ShanghART Main Space and H-Space till 3^rd May. This is the widely recognised Artist ZHAO Yang’s largest and pivotal solo exhibition as well as his first solo exhibition in ShanghART Gallery.

ZHAO Yang is literally abbreviated also tuned to ZAO, Chinese painting entrenched background blended with earlier literature involved profession cultivates the poetic, philosophical characteristics of the artist, which surreptitiously resonate the unspeakable humanity as his core conception. If a sense of ‘a sleepwalker’s momentarily soliloquy in wonderland’ is inspired while strolling among those fragmentary poetic titled paintings, an intuition of dreamlike fairy-tale may impress individuals subjectively. Encyclopedic themes scoped from ancient Gods, animated mundane objects, scenes to magic universe, an endless absurdity and fantasy exuding from every unfinished narrative camouflages the solitude and irony of humanity. Rendering with eastern painting strokes and the atmosphere of melancholic bluish and reddish hues, maximises the paradoxical illusion between the unavoidable reality and a meditated dreamland. Over 30 latest paintings are soon presented in both spaces, clue viewers in a maze which manoeuvres the balance of the wildness and normality to further interpreting the allure of those artistic fables.

The exhibition: ZAO by ZHAO Yang is an underground laboratory established by an amateurish experimental enthusiast, where is produced for the futility, manipulated the catastrophe and studied ‘failures’ bitterly.

Affirmatively, this is ZHAO Yang and ZAO by ZHAO Yang, being and not being.

ZHAO Yang, born in Jilin province 1970 and graduated from the China Academy of Fine Art, Hang Zhou in 1995. He currently lives and works in Beijing, his recent exhibitions include: Une histoire: art, architecture, design des années 1980 à nos jours, Collections contemporaines, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2015); China 8 , Contemporary Art from China at the Rhine and Ruhr, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2015); Semi-automatic Mode 2, ShanghART Beijing, Beijing (2014); Lost Portrait, Long Museum, Shanghai (2014) , The Bottomless Pit, ZHAO Yang Solo Exhibition, Upto Art Space, Shanghai (2013); Ignition Point, Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai (2013), etc.