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Zhang Enli

Four Seasons

Malerischer Zoom in die Natur

The post-socialist art boom in 1990s China mostly passed by the painter Zhang Enli (b. Jilin Province, China, 1965; lives and works in Shanghai), but in the past few years, his oeuvre has garnered international attention.

Zhang’s more recent paintings show the beauty of nature in enlarged details: water surfaces, trees, foliage in close-up views captured on canvas that cautiously undo the division between interior and exterior spaces. Yet his pictures do not show ideal landscapes; what Zhang records are facets of personal recollection. Deeply convinced that nature, too, is capable of feeling, he treats his motifs with the technique of traditional Chinese painting, applying highly diluted ink in deliberate brushstrokes. The pencil underdrawings remain visible beneath the transparent layers of color, leaving no doubt that painting is an artifact, a likeness, and not an illusion. In his “Space Paintings,” Zhang Enli paints directly on the walls of a room to create a nostalgic atmosphere balanced between abstract gesture and figural remaking.