ZHANG MENG

While the use of wax recalls the Byzantian-Orthodox encaustic painting method used in Christian icons panels, the replacement of wood with parchment paper conveys a radically different emotional tone from the artist.

The monochrome aesthetic of these charcoal drawings echoes classical China’s Literati Paintings which prized poetry, metaphors and personal expression above mere likeness.

The names of Zhang’s drawings often provide a path to the artist’s mind. Consider the juxtaposition of the drawing Holy Breakfast with Before Everything Falls Apart and At Nowhere II: While the former alludes to the remanence of religious spiritualism as Zhang observes in the daily life of her traditional German household by marriage, the latter two titles allude to a world more delicate and transient.

With a sense of multiple-identity always underlying her living experience. Zhang’s tableau can be read as an enigmatic symbol of intercultural experience and an allegory for life in a world that has become boundless.

Zhang Meng (b.1983) is a linguistics scholar turned artist, lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany. Through her works, she translates her experience of being a female Chinese artist living in Germany into wild imaginations of the collective mythologies of the West and the East. Her works are featured in several museum exhibitions such as Regionale 21 (Switzerland, 2020), Dreispurig, VII, Ellwanger Kunstausstellung (Germany, 2019), Regionale 19, Kunsthalle Pallazzo (Switzerland, 2018), among others. She was the artist in residency for the 2020 Scholoss Plueschow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.