Introduction
Foreword
"Zhang Hui Solo Exhibition 2022-2023" focuses on Zhang Hui's recent works from the past two years, particularly the progress and updates in portraiture and floral themes. A catalogue is published to coincide with the exhibition, compiling all the new works over the past two years, and providing a detailed overview of Zhang Hui's recent work.
The exhibition stems from a close examination of Zhang Hui's creative career and a review of his painting progress in the past two years. In retrospect, Zhang Hui's paintings have always been serene, often oscillating between simplicity and complexity in terms of form. Overall, they contain tension and pull, but the temperament is always calm and refined. Over more than thirty years of painting with various themes, Zhang Hui has built a consistent set of characteristics, including his personal visual language, brushwork, color palette, stylized schematic systems, and the repetition of images within the schematic systems.
Since 2011, in Zhang Hui's systematic works, there have been several recurring themes, with a focus on natural and portraiture subjects. The portraits and flowers presented in this exhibition are both a response to these patterns and a form of renewal and extension. One noticeable change in this two-year creative sequence is the depiction of increasingly localized objects. Flowers that were once decorative elements on branches evolved into single stem forms and eventually became independent of branches. In the past two years, single flowers have expanded to fill canvas sizes exceeding 2 meters in length and width. Similarly, the "Standing Women" series, which grew from the miniature "The Flying of Three" series (since 2010), has evolved into life-sized "Portrait" series (from 2020 onwards). When working with the large format, Zhang Hui's brushwork appears similar to that of his small paintings, with lines encompassing both rapid and slow movements, and colors that seem casual but are enough to make each painting unique. This candid statement and free brushwork are what make large paintings appear light and relaxed. The lines that ultimately form on layers of varying complexity infuse the picture with a fluidity that achieves a state of vivacity.
In particular, this exhibition presents Zhang Hui's "Man and Woman" series, the latest development after the single nudes of man and woman. Zhang Hui extends his previous approach of creating flat surfaces and contouring lines, creating spaciousness in the compositions that reveals an open state of mind. The juxtaposition of male and female figures reveals Zhang Hui's perception of the universal consciousness of life. Over several years of artistic exploration, Zhang has expressed the characteristics and integration of gender in a comprehensive manner. In the context of all his previous works, Zhang Hui's gaze is directed towards ordinary people. The individuals depicted in his paintings are not mere creations but real, existent individuals with their own personal histories. Zhang Hui places them independently of natural landscapes and urban scenery. Rather than attempting to detach them from their life contexts, he aims to reflect a more universal aspect of human existence -- the sense of life that people can share beyond time and place, transcending the immediate and the specific.
