Pessimistic painter of urban doom
By Wang Jie |
January 8, 2013, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SOME people say Zhao Zhengrong's very large canvases suggest doomsday, ready to suck them into a dying urban landscape.
"No, it is definitely has nothing to do with the end of the world," says Zhao of his latest works at M50, an artists' hub. "I'm already accustomed to various reactions toward my paintings in which viewers see anger, pain, desperation, power and solitude."
Zhao admits he's a pessimist, pouring his feelings into his art.
"I am tired of repeating what already exists in front of my eyes, " he says.
Zhao's works tend to be unsettling and difficult to decipher; they are intense, abstract, dark and vibrant. He often paints burning or ruined urban landscapes swept by mists of acid rain, choked by ink-wash air filled with strange objects, perhaps blobs, fish and strange calligraphy.
"The world I paint is not one of sunshine and air," Zhao says. "If everything could be judged good or bad, then life would be simple. But the world I know is filled with tension and disturbance."
Zhao says his paintings reveal "the pain and tension in my heart ... If you recognized the blurred city scene in my painting, what you find are ruins or a destroyed, abandoned land."
Born in 1971 in Shanghai, Zhao studied oil painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and later at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He now teaches at the Guangzhou Art Academy.
Art critic Xie Kejun once said that "Zhou is constructing and yet also deconstructing in these veiled scenes. It seems the artist is trying to cure his would with the repeated covering of oil and colors."
Date: Through January 31, 10am-5pm
Address: Rm 212, Bldg 4, 50 Moganshan Rd
"No, it is definitely has nothing to do with the end of the world," says Zhao of his latest works at M50, an artists' hub. "I'm already accustomed to various reactions toward my paintings in which viewers see anger, pain, desperation, power and solitude."
Zhao admits he's a pessimist, pouring his feelings into his art.
"I am tired of repeating what already exists in front of my eyes, " he says.
Zhao's works tend to be unsettling and difficult to decipher; they are intense, abstract, dark and vibrant. He often paints burning or ruined urban landscapes swept by mists of acid rain, choked by ink-wash air filled with strange objects, perhaps blobs, fish and strange calligraphy.
"The world I paint is not one of sunshine and air," Zhao says. "If everything could be judged good or bad, then life would be simple. But the world I know is filled with tension and disturbance."
Zhao says his paintings reveal "the pain and tension in my heart ... If you recognized the blurred city scene in my painting, what you find are ruins or a destroyed, abandoned land."
Born in 1971 in Shanghai, Zhao studied oil painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and later at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He now teaches at the Guangzhou Art Academy.
Art critic Xie Kejun once said that "Zhou is constructing and yet also deconstructing in these veiled scenes. It seems the artist is trying to cure his would with the repeated covering of oil and colors."
Date: Through January 31, 10am-5pm
Address: Rm 212, Bldg 4, 50 Moganshan Rd
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