Marlborough Fine Art-London hosts the first UK exhibition for Zhang Qikai

Wednesday, 28 May 2008 00:25

London - The directors of Marlborough Fine Art are delighted to announce the first UK exhibition of paintings by celebrated Chinese artist, Zhang Qikai.  It will comprise twenty recent works, many using the image of the Panda, paintings for which he has been highly praised. The panda also suggests the desire to escape, such as driving away in a car or clinging to the stem of a rose.  There is always a bid for freedom in these dream-like paintings but there is always a sense that we are held back by the constraints of reality. Exhibition on view 29 May – 21 June 2008,

Born in Sichuan Province in 1950, Qikai has shown extensively in China and Japan and in Germany, where he lived in the 1990s.  The apparent loneliness of living in a foreign land and a deep understanding of the differences between east and west are ever present in his work.

Having returned to his native China in 2000, he began to use the panda in his work. The panda is a symbol of peace and a protected species in China, yet he cuts a lonely, solitary figure in Qikai’s work. The environment where the panda resides varies but void and quiet are a common characteristic. He is enclosed in the material world and overwhelmed by consumer culture, as if to imply his and China’s predicament with the modern world.

There is conflict between what is happening in the real world, the effects of consumerism and the cultural discord within.  In this highly civilised world with well-developed science and material, the panda provides spiritual sustenance while human relations are disharmonious.

About the artist
Zhang Qikai was born in the Sichuan province in 1950 and moved to Chongqing with his family in 1953. He learned painting form his elder brother and, as a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, he began to paint huge portraits of Mao Zedong. In 1980 he was a founding member, along with his contemporaries Luo Zhongli, He Duoliing, Zhang Xiaogang and Ye Yongqing, of the ‘Weed Society’. It was a non-official painting group which held free uncensored art shows and had a great impact on society at the time.

Throughout the 1980s he exhibited widely, winning prizes and several works were collected by China Nation Museum of Fine Arts.

From 1987 to 1990 Qikai studied at the Tamatsi University of Fine Arts in Japan. He held many solo exhibitions during his time in Japan, won the International Art Prize and the Speaker’s Prize. He was also a member of judges’ panel recommended by Japan International Modern Artist Association and Kanagawa Artist Association.

In the 1990s Zhang Qikai lived in Berlin where he continually showed both in solo and in joint exhibitions. He returned to China in 2000 and has since devoted himself to art education and cultural exchanges between East and West after he came back to China in 2000. In 2002 he organized the performance of the International New Long March – Crossing Europe’ and in recent years, he’s earned high praise for his new series of Panda. His book The documenta-Western Contemporary Vision Text was published in 2007 and a revised edition will be published in May 2008.

Zhang Qikai is:

• A member of China’s Artist Association
• Professor of Oil Painting Department, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, China
• An academy committee member of Contemporary Visual Art Research Center, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, China
• Guest researcher of Research Center of Design & Art, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

His work can be found in the Guangdong Museum of Art’s Collection

A fully illustrated catalogue will be published with an introduction by the celebrated journalist and author, Xinran. For further information contact Mary Miller at Marlborough Fine Art, 0207 629 5161 or mmiller-at-marlboroughfineart.com

“Each time I appreciate the empty rooms and beasts painted by Qikai, I can feel the touch, in addition to some kind of fear and panic that directly reaches the image at the bottom of my heart” . . Zhang Xiaogang

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~