DAN ZHU

Dan Zhu was born in Jiangxi, China. Although she had long enjoyed painting, she only entered artcollege after turning 25. The five years at the Offenbach University of Art and Design in Germanywere the most intellectually stimulating time in her life so far. Art, music, and the world of ideas, allbecome her inspiration. Reading the influential early 20th-century philosopher Henri Bergson haschanged her approach to seeing things, ‘I now have a fly’s compound eye.’ Like many early cubistsand surrealists, Bergson’s idea of duration and consciousness influence time and narrative in Zhu’spaintings. In a Bergsonian world, ‘abstract’ and ‘surreal’ are meaningless, for these terms definethemselves against terms such as figurative, landscape or realism, which to her are too artificial. Sheconfesses that ‘the real world is a huge energy hole’ with the certitude of someone who firmly holdsa minority view. As an intellectually curious outsider, Zhu is naturally drawn to esoteric contrariantraditions. Her dissertation was on the artist Hilma af Klint and she also cites the Theosophist RudolfSteiner as an influence. Zhu is against art historical narratives (abstract, surrealism) and art marketlabels (female, Gen-Z) people tend to give her.

Dan Zhu’s works often show a lucid appreciation of the linkages between the macrocosm and themicrocosm, and between the natural world and human consciousness. For the artist’s debut soloshow in China, she presents a series of large scale works on paper and paintings. The multiscreentheatrical format of her recent work The Chestnut on the Shore (2022) is a nod to the cave-like roomsin the Covent of San Marco where the 15th century Florentine friar Fra Angelico painted. In Take Offand Run (287 x 456 cm, 2023), her largest painting to date, viewer can find a full-bodied crimsonflower starting from the bottom left corner, rising, running across and falling on the bottom right corneras something existing only in outlines, ethereal, totally relaxed.

Dan Zhu often mentions wanting to be bold, experiment with colour, discover, unchain herself, andeven cloister up like a Fra Angelico for a few years. These are struggles with conventions, theories,comforts and temptations. It is as much a spiritual struggle as it is technical. Many will recognise thesensation of looking into a small puddle of water and suddenly experiencing vertigo. It is the sensationof crossing the threshold between the microcosm and the macrocosm – Dan Zhu’s best paintingsoften dance along this verge.