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Zhang Xinyi, a young artist after 85,
Dubbed by some media: "China's flat master";
Of course being "mastered" is a complete misunderstanding,
She likes to take inspiration from art history and popular images.
Mona Lisa, the maiden with pearl earrings, Frida Caro...
A classic image,
All of them are paintings that she transformed into ultra-flat styles.
Zhang Xinyi will consider the transmission path of the work when creating,
She used to use emoji expressions,
Created a set of emoji versions of "Mountains and Seas Through Strange Beasts",
Also extract the image of middle-aged and elderly memes,
Become a network hit, causing controversy,
Many people commented: "Ugly crying", "Is this also an artist?" ”
For these doubts, Zhang Xinyi did not mind.
Zhang Xinyi when not working,
Describe yourself as a person of extreme social fear,
She likes to watch variety shows, watch live broadcasts, and also likes to calmly observe the world.
Often sit in the corner of a lively café,
Observe the every move of the people around you.
Zhang Xinyi said: "Many artists usually originate from their own experience.
I prefer to summarize what the public is concerned about;
Art is a challenge and an adventure for me,
Stick to your own style, good works will always have an audience. ”
Self-description Zhang Xinyi
Editor Chen Daodao Responsible Editor Deng Kailei
Zhang Xinyi, born in 1987, came to Beijing to live in college. She first studied stage art at the Drama Academy, and after graduation, she did advertising and design for two or three years, and then went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts to study for graduate and doctoral studies, under the guidance of the great artist Xu Bing.
Zhang Xinyi when he was a child
As a post-85 generation, she has been influenced by animation, advertising, and popular culture since she was a child. When there was a computer in junior high school, when everyone was still keen to use it to qq chat or play games, Zhang Xinyi had begun to think about how to use the computer to draw.
Usually, Zhang Xinyi likes to wear high-saturation clothes to show her vitality, and her paintings are the same as my own, all of which have a very bright saturation.
But Zhang Xinyi said: "My works look bright, but there is a temptation, attracting people's constant attention, and will form a strong visual contrast in front of the eyes." The flattened history of art prompts people's attitudes towards classical knowledge, and I want the public to re-understand it. ”
The following is Zhang Xinyi's self-statement:
Turn the Mona Lisa into Hello Kitty
My parents were not art workers, but when I was a child, every room in our house had a lot of decorations related to art history, such as the porcelain plate of the Mona Lisa, and the paintings of Picasso, Ingres, and Rossetti cut from the wall calendar. Although I don't know the story behind these works of art, perhaps this environment has had a subtle influence on me, and I picked up a paintbrush and began to paint from an early age.
Michelangelo's Genesis, now in the Chapel of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican
Portrait-3 2018
I really started working on art history because of my curiosity about the word "Icon." The word "Icon" first represented the religious and iconographic paintings of churches in the Middle Ages. Now, it represents the icons used in computers and mobile phones, and the pun of the word means that it seems to be a word that can connect history and the present.
Icon Series Sketch-9 2017
Around 2014, when the mobile phone interface style changed from skeuomorphic to flat, it seemed to herald a shift in the aesthetic style of the Internet. I think this may be because in the network, the smaller the quality of the picture, the faster it spreads, the stronger the vitality.
It so happened that I learned about the history of Hello Kitty in a book, she was born in the UK but became popular in Japan, and finally became a cute image of girls around the world who are crazy. Although it only has two eyes and nose, and no mouth, it gives people a cool feeling. This immediately reminded me of the most popular female figure in classic paintings of art history, the Mona Lisa.
The expression on her mysterious face is the same as Hello Kitty's, and it implies a huge pictorial energy. So my first work was deconstructing the Mona Lisa and naming it "Hello, Mona!"
Holiday Venus 2019
"After being continuously reprinted by the self-media, I became a flat 'master'"
When creating the "History of Art" series, I would first search in search engines to see which world famous paintings had the most hits or the most widely disseminated, which was equivalent to giving the choice to the public.
Because everyone's understanding of art history may be different, but in this way, it can synthesize most people's familiarity and cognition of art history.
Edward Manet | Lunch on the grass in 1863
The most search results, without suspense, is the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", which reflects the aesthetic concept and pursuit of female beauty at that time.
This was followed by the French realist and impressionist painter Édouard Manet's Lunch on the Grass in 1863. In fact, this work also appropriates the image of Lemonmont's The Trial of Parris, but in Manet's pen, a and two well-dressed men have lunch on the grass. It was also a highly controversial work at the time, such a dramatic scene, even if you see this painting now, you can feel its challenge and avant-garde.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres | Omiya
Sandro Botticelli | Birth of Venus 1487 AD
In addition, there are Delacroix's "Freedom Leads the People", Ingres's "The Lady of the Great Palace", Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", Manet's "Olympia", these works are constantly consumed and new images are produced in the process of image reproduction.
If only teenage girls from all over the world were willing to join hands in 2016
After choosing the right work, I sketched out the general outline on the iPad, finding out the relationship between each character, the geometry, and the formal beauty of the image itself.
Trainee/Oyster Theater 2019
Portrait-7 2018
Recolor afterwards. Change the feeling of the original work and produce a new image with a sense of strangeness. This strangeness is precious to me, a bit like an attitude that people have towards classical knowledge, déjà vu, but unable to match the original situation.
Icon Series Sketch-4 2015
After trying out a variety of color schemes, I re-imported the determined image effects into the computer, made a large number of geometric guides, and through the continuous geometric circular angle cutting, to achieve an icon that could no longer be simplified but recognizable symbol graphics, an icon was generated.
Fingertip Flame 2020
"Appropriation" is a common practice of contemporary art creation, this flat creation method refers to the consumption of images and the public's way of knowing the ancient. We always interpret the classics very roughly and in a very linear way. But the story behind it, the faint details, is always skimmed by. There are no clear images in my mind.
What I want to express is the regret that these details have been ignored and erased. For example, "The Girl with the Pearl Earring", this painting attracted me most not only the faint light on the pearl, but also the girl in the painting formed a special field as far as the eye could see, so that the audience could be quiet in an instant.
Office of Visible Views 2019
Because I have created a lot of images from art history, even when I search for pictures on the Internet, I will see my own works mixed in. What's even more interesting is that since one of my early works was named The Flat Master, my name always appeared at the same time as "Master". I don't know when, after being continuously processed and reprinted by the self-media, I actually became the "flat master", which is ridiculous.
Zhang Xinyi in the studio
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Appropriate and natural memes, representing the worldview of young people
I am very sensitive to images, what kind of images are the most popular at the moment, and use them most frequently every day? One answer is on the horizon: memes. The original study of memes was because of the topic of the master's thesis, the symbolism of Emoji, the literality, whether it will become a global language, whether it will become the new "Tower of Babel", these questions all attracted me to study in depth.
For example, in the "Doutu War" in social software, everyone will take out their own inventory, treasure map, and wang bomb map, and in the process, they will feel surprised, humorous, and a kind of relaxation.
In the first two years, a very interesting emoji style was popular, we jokingly called it "middle-aged and elderly" emoji, the most classic and widely spread of which is the image of the toast, and the elegant sense of ceremony of the lady in the picture holding up the wine glass and the realistic gag joke contradict each other, resulting in humor and absurdity. This picture may have been taken twenty years ago, and has been forgotten, but it has been reborn today.
Mountains and Seas by Moji 2016
The Classic of Mountains and Seas pieces together the scattered knowledge of the world to form a map, which is the method of ancient peoples to understand the world. In particular, the images in the mountains and seas through the beast may be real creatures, but many of them are collaged with symbols, carrying the imagination of the vast world.
It is as if modern people use emoji to dialogue, do not like to use exact words, but use images as language expression to create a larger imagination space. I think there are many similarities between this and the pattern of symbolization in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, or the new worldview that young radicals are reveling in. As a result, emoji becomes a connection point between the past and the present.
After this group of works is done, it is difficult for me to categorize it, it is more like an illustration, suggesting that we may look at the emoji thing from a more perspective. So I posted it online. First, it was reprinted by the public account of design and art.
After that, people's livelihood and local newspapers also began to reprint, with more and more reprints, there are more questions, many people see this group of works after commenting: "Is this also a work?" What do you want to express? "This work is so ugly, ugly to cry!" "Now the threshold for being an artist is too low!" ”
In fact, before I released this group of works, I had already thought of such a possibility. Because the words of "Emoji" and "Shan Hai Jing" are two big IPs together, there is enough attraction to make people want to click. But seeing these controversies, it seems to have achieved the effect I wanted. I want to know what kind of images are acceptable to the public, and what kind of laws are behind them.
Zhang Xinyi at the exhibition site
30 MONTAIGNE Classic Collection Black Cashmere Blend with logo on the back hooded knit
Black floral tulle mid-length pleated skirt
All are Dior high-end ready-to-wear
In addition to making emoji collages, I also thought of using the "stand-in" function of emojis to make a "WeChat theater". Under the epidemic, everyone is waiting for the day when the epidemic will end, but the hope is delayed, just like waiting for Godot. So I created a waiting for Godot that happened on my phone.
Footage of the video work "Waiting for Godot"
The two protagonists in the original play, Vladimir and Estagon, are referred to simply as GG and DD. They are played by two meme images, a mushroom head and a panda head, which are also the result of my use of search engines. Instead of deliberately designing the content in the memes, I chose the "wild" memes I could find to get the most empathy.
The mushroom head and the panda head throw the stem one by one, whispering, spitting, this invalid dialogue is as absurd as the original text of "Waiting for Godot", and the final result is nothing. The title of this exhibition, "Waiting for Gordopamine," is particularly in line with the mood of the moment, while slurring about the badness of the world, and frantically creating dopamine to beautify the world's good.
The exhibition site of "Waiting for Godot"
In this exhibition, I also made some clay pots. At first, I wanted to express that the mobile phone was like a wild dancing snake to tempt us into a "jar", and then I found that the patterns and totems on the Majiayao faience pottery in the Neolithic era were very exquisite, and when the world had not yet been connected, the frog-shaped patterns that symbolized the cult of fertility were already an international symbol, just like emoji, a simple :), that is, people of different cultural backgrounds and languages could understand.
I went to Gansu to find a master of restored faience pottery and collaborated with him on this series of works, traditional totems mixed with emoji and network abbreviations, such as yyds, which I painted on the jar.
Popular Images-1 2018
A human observation of a grotesque girl
If there is a way of creating that artists use, I think it should be observation. When I was a child, I especially liked to watch all kinds of TV commercials, magazines, and posters. I'm used to taking a lot of information first, then processing it, looking for commonalities.
When I'm not working, I like to go to crowded places and go to cafes. Pretending to be at work, but actually secretly observing what others are talking about? What are you spreading and paying attention to? And in that place the senses will be amplified, stimulated by all kinds of images, sounds, information, and the mind will be particularly active.
Message -2 2021
My personality is actually a little extreme, when I want to share something or be with friends, I often speak very quickly, talk endlessly, and even sometimes my thinking can't keep up with the speed of speech, showing a very cheerful and lively personality.
Zhang Xinyi Studio
But in fact, I was extremely socially afraid, and I could stay in the studio for a few days without going out. So, I'll make the studio a little more comfortable, and everywhere I look, it's something I like and have an emotional connection.
Matsuzuki Night 2021
Trigger 2018
Artist Andy Warhol once said, "In the future, everyone will have 15 minutes to become famous." This sentence is most apt to describe this era. Since the development of media, everyone can post their works on the Internet. If the work is popular, it will spontaneously grow and circulate, and the Internet celebrities will continue to update and iterate.
I don't think art has a high threshold of understanding, or that it's the artist's self-amusement. If my work could inspire more people even a little, it would already be very happy.
Some of the pictures were provided by the artist
Acknowledgements: Dior DIOR