The bits and pieces around us are all part of our lives, and it retains a moment for us in a hurry, some inadvertent little things, which take root, stop, and sing on those objects.
—— Artist Zhang Ping
Zhang Ping was born in Tacheng, a small border town in Xinjiang. Most of the residents of Tacheng believe in Islam, and the strong religious atmosphere has influenced Zhang Ping, and she has pinned her doubts about life on religious answers. After wandering through Islam, Taoism, Christianity, and Buddhism, she is still on her way to finding answers.
Artist Zhang Ping
On Zhang Ping's artistic path, the bumpy experience of studying is the thorns she has crossed on the road of life. The school she attended as a teenager did not have an art class, which left her with a whirlwind to another school to "practice." Her family wanted her to go to Karamay to study petroleum, but Zhang Ping, who had a dream, did not want to go, and she felt that she should go to art, not oil.
Squat toilet 4 acrylic 200×100 cm 2004
Squat toilet 6 acrylic 200× 100 cm 2004
With her love for art and continuous efforts, she was admitted to Shanghai East China Normal University for graduate school. When she was a graduate student, Zhang Ping had already begun her creative path. During this period, her intimate series "Makeup" and "Squatting Toilet" and other seemingly ordinary subjects actually show the most relaxed and realistic state of women under the confined intimate space.
Makeup 02 acrylic 220× 100 cm 2005
Makeup 04 acrylic 220× 100 cm 2005
Move with your heart and come and go as you please. Perhaps because of the gobi people's natural desire for freedom in their bones, she has a dashing energy to do whatever she wants. After graduating from graduate school, she moved to the art park and resolutely became an independent artist. She wants to be a freelance artist, Zhang Ping does not care much about the world's requirements for women, living a casual personal lifestyle, she said: "As long as you live your own life." ”
Zhang Ping considers herself a sensory artist, and each series she creates is closely related to her own living environment and real situation. Because what she can feel most is these things and things around her.
Little girl snoozing 100x80cm acrylic on canvas 2020
She admitted that the recently created "Shimmer" series was affected by the epidemic and was inspired by it. The occurrence of major social events makes people begin to rethink the meaning of life. With these objects that we can see everywhere everywhere every day, these daily necessities seem clumsy and subtle in her pen. Her pen has a simple and delicate temperament, the pen is free and tense, and the picture reveals the unique style of female artists.
Dim sum dish under lights one of 100x80cm acrylic on canvas 2020
Time flies, and the passage of time shines through every moment of our lives. In the "Shimmer" series, movement and stillness are opposite, and most of the "appearances" on the screen are some items in Zhang Ping's studio: it may be an old sofa, a candlestick lampshade hiding in the corner, or an old chair full of paint, a small basin full of pastries, lazy afternoons, and drowsiness, the visit of friends, the projection of nieces playing, are bits and pieces, sparse and ordinary daily life, and the glow flowing in the picture is a kind of flowing stillness, a calm movement.
Tea Sea 113x83cm Acrylic on canvas 2020
Rice bucket 144x179cm acrylic on canvas 2020
Zhang Ping likes to collect objects, especially old objects. Even an old sofa was different in Zhang Ping's eyes. She felt that there were traces of people hidden in these old things, and the magic of time and space gave the old objects a unique energy. Paint it, erase it, wash it off, paint it again... Repeating these steps creates a mottled texture on the screen that symbolizes the old objects that have endured the wind and frost over time, and is the trace left by Zhang Ping's search for multiple times, spaces, memories and information. The traces of memory are superimposed and uncertain, giving the picture a multiple sense of time and space. Objects have gone through the process of being used by people, carrying and recording human memories in layers, and multiple illusory superpositions represent human yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Vinyl Phonograph No. 3 100x80cm Acrylic on canvas 2020
Vinyl Gramophone No. 2 100x80cm Acrylic on canvas 2020
Red Sofa Bis 140x180cm Acrylic on canvas 2020
"Shimmer" can also be understood as the meaning of "microscopic", the so-called "Mustard seed, mustard seed Nasumi". Zhang Ping enlarged the originally small object and placed it on a huge canvas, showing a sense of self-satisfaction. Her treatment of shadows in her works is like her spirit and substance between dreams and reality, with religious symbolism and the allegory of life and death.
Empty sofa 300x120cm acrylic on canvas 2020
Shadow on sofa 300x120cm acrylic on canvas 2020
"Sofa", which is also one of her recent "Shimmer" series of works. Breath remains on the object, so the object has the breath of energy, time and space. As the most commonly used thing in daily life, the sofa will be particularly close to life and closer to the breath.
Lying on the couch of A Seed 300x120cm acrylic on canvas 2020
Zhang Ping said that this is a work based on his niece Ah Zi as a model. In Zhang Ping's view, the most attractive stage of human life is adolescence, and she admits that many of the images in her works are also of this age. She sees this as "the best period for people" and "the most sensitive period for people" as well. "I just like to paint youth." She said so.
For Zhang Ping, so many years of painting, creating, and holding exhibitions are a never-ending long journey on the road of pursuing art. There is no end to the end of art, the far side is still far away, as a limited individual, the limited person can touch the same limited objects around him. These objectively existing objects are waiting for the artist to give something, and if she does not paint them, their past will be unknown.
Shimmer No.6 144x179cm Acrylic on canvas 2020
Shimmer Of Five, 140x175cm Acrylic on canvas, 2020
Zhang Ping said: "In fact, the object or thing that everyone sees in their eyes is their own perspective. If you draw carefully what you can see: everyone can be an artist. Some people may look atmospheric, some people are handsome, some are meticulous, some are rough, and this is the world you see. ”
Listen to the story of the girl 100x80cm acrylic on canvas 2020
Based on life, Zhang Ping reconstructs the world we can perceive with a paintbrush, connecting the "past" and "future" from the "present". The boundary between living and non-living organisms seems to have been dissolved, and the boundary between art and life has also disappeared.
Artist Profile
Zhang ping
2011-2016 Ph.D. in Fine Arts, School of Art, East China Normal University
2003-2006 Master of Fine Arts, School of Fine Arts, East China Normal University
1994-1995 Department of Graphic Design, Central Academy of Arts and Crafts
1991-1994 Fine Arts Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Xinjiang Normal University
Main solo exhibitions:
2018 "Daigo" Zhang Ping solo exhibition liang project Shanghai
2016 "Negative Xuan. Waiting for the Moon" has a double solo exhibition with Zhang Ping
Shanghai Lingang Museum of Contemporary Art
2014 Double solo exhibition of "Tianshan on the Sea" Changji Art Museum, Xinjiang
Double solo exhibition of "Tianshan Sea" Art Museum of Xinjiang Normal University
2013 Negative Xuan. Waiting for the Moon" has a double solo exhibition with Zhang Ping
Shanghai, China
2011 Fire, Shanghai, China
2007 One Line, Five Five Gallery
Smoking, London, UK
scope International Contemporary Art Fair
Major group exhibitions:
2018 Onomatopoeia, Rongyi Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2018 "A Flat Ruler" Shanghai Paper Art Exhibition Spring Art Museum
2017 Maritime Extension - 2017 Shanghai Artists Joint Exhibition
2016 "Belt and Road" Cultural Presentation Exhibition
2011 Shanghai Outstanding Young Artists Invitation Exhibition
Xuhui Art Museum Shanghai, China
"Missing Identity: A Group Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Women Artists"
Fujian Art Museum
The Wizard of Oz - Contemporary Art Exhibition 696 Art District
2010 "The Trick of The City" After the Art of Shanghai, China
pulse International Contemporary Art Fair
Miami, USA
Grid Six Cut-off Gallery, Shanghai, China
2009 "Future Manufacturing" Qinghe Art Museum Nanjing, China
"696 Open Exhibition of Contemporary Art" 696 Art District
Volta International Contemporary Art Fair
Basel, Switzerland