Author: ZHAO GANG 赵刚

Size: 300×400cm

Signed and dated: Painted in 2013

Estimate: 700,000 -1,000,000

Final Price: RMB 700,000

LITERATURE
2015 Qidan People-Zhao Gang Solo Exhibition / P39 / Platform China
signed in Pinyin (on the reverse)
EXHIBITED
2014 Summer Group Exhibition Platform China Chinese Contemporary Art Institute A Space, Beijing

There are many legendary labels about Zhao Gang, such as 'Star Painting Association', 'bad painting', 'avantgarde art', 'Manchu descendants', 'immigration', 'identity conflict' All these come from his cross era and complex experience, but they are all about the artist's thoughts on history and himself. Zhao Gang's solo exhibition Khitan People in 2013 is his exploration and interpretation of the proposition of 'identity' after returning to the Chinese contemporary painting world. During this period, what he wanted to do was to continue to 'form a personal exploration of the growth and strength of new things in the form of painting'. Therefore, the painter chose to go back in Chinese tradition and take the image resources in history as the material for artistic practice. The stroller misappropriates the images of the three color female riding figurines in Turpan, combines them with the 'green landscape' background, and repaints these Chinese classical elements with oil painting materials.
In the painting, the woman sitting upright on the horse is plump, wearing drapery hats and short Ru long skirts, which are the characteristics of women in the Tang Dynasty. However, in such an image outline, the painter painted it flat with black paint, erasing the original colors and patterns; The environment in the painting has been abstracted to a great extent. The huge earth mounds, disordered green peaks, the straightforward and clear sky and the red trees that seem to rush into the sky in the wind form a shaky picture composition; The use of such bright and uncoordinated colors not only reminds people of Matisse's 'Fauvism' style, but also creates a sense of disorder visually. The contradiction between Chinese themes and oil painting materials, and the conflict between traditional elements and ways of expression suggest the identity obstacles caused by Chinese and Western ideologies and cultural traditions in the painter's experience.
As for painting, Zhao Gang once had his own opinion: 'I think the similarity between the palette and the dinner plate may be related to a saying: 'your food determines what you paint'.' The Stroller (Lot 1096) is also like an artist's experimental practice, constantly jumping between the historical 'original' and the Western taste, and repeatedly shifting between the sense of cultural belonging and the sense of exclusion; As Zhao Gang said, the process of creation 'imitates ancient Chinese paintings, then dispels them, and captures the impulse of self destruction and pursuit.' Zhao Gang hopes to find a 'critical point' between right and wrong, inside and outside, China and the west, painting and non painting through this attempt, which is not only an answer to the question of identity, but also a response to 'painting is dead'. Artists put themselves and their works on this 'critical point', and completed the 'expression of exile and self exile' in the imbalance. As the title of the painting implies, this is a stroll led by the heart, light and sober.