Zhan Wang

Zhan Wang’s most celebrated work to date is his series of ‘artificial rocks’ – stainless steel replicas of the much-revered ‘scholar’s rocks’ traditionally found in Chinese gardens. The mirrored surfaces of these often monumental objects absorb the viewer and its surrounding environment, enticing them to become part of the work, an abstraction and distortion of reality, thus creating a visual interplay between positions of tradition and modernity. He further explores his fascination with material and reflection in a series of works titled “Urban Landscape” in which he recreates models of major cities, such as London, Beijing and Chicago – using kitchenware and cutlery. The process of miniaturizing an urban sprawl through the use of domestic and ordinary objects calls forth the basic necessities of life, despite the rapid modernization of contemporary society.