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    Coverage: “Subliminal Matrix” Solo Exhibition by Zhang Ji at Volery Gallery, Dubai

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    Last September 22nd, Volery Gallery opened Subliminal Matrix, a solo exhibition by Beijing-based Chinese painter Zhang Ji. This exhibition showcases a precisely calibrated selection of 12 paintings, created from 2018 – 2020, which demonstrates Zhang’s wholehearted engagement with the very structures and systems of painting. Subliminal Matrix is a collaboration of Volery Gallery with art collector and advisor Fabien Fryns who has been active in the contemporary art scene since 1986.The series, simply titled The Skin of Truth, features the artist’s minimalistic yet richly intricate detailed artworks which appear to radiant into immediate material presence whereupon he shapes the aesthetical effect. From earthy tones to magnetic blue and crimson red etc, Zhang used a variety of rich, bright hues as well as pure white, black and grey etc.His process calls attention to the paintings’ silken surfaces, loaded with oil paint; strengthened with the sheer physicality and expressive power of his medium. Gazing at these ethereal, atmospheric embossed-like paintings provide the viewers the sensation of a commanding optical quality, floating freely, bulged and ebbed, as if unanchored by gravity.In this exhibition, each composition is an independent work but also integral to the whole. Each work, elucidated the others, commenting on proportion, texture and the handling of the medium. The glossy was juxtaposed with the matte, the flat with the protruded, and the monochromatic and polychromatic panelling. Viewed together, these paintings convey a sense of symbolic matrix that can readily shift in relation to the painterly space and viewer’s angles of perception, yet captured visceral at its most subliminal.True to the paintings’ original premises, in this series, Zhang has painted with a restless, innovative and complete technical mastery. Each artwork is a fresh visual adventure with a strong sense of continuity not only as themselves, but also in relation to one another. The artist proves that you don’t have to go colossal to convey epic themes. But if one is to engage them on his/her own terms, they slowly reveal themselves as the artist’s response to his life observation and they allow the sense of things being painted and how we imagine the world through the imageries whereupon Zhang shapes a kind of expanded interrelation, articulated through correspondences of colour, shape and material inspiring trajectories of thought and narrative across the painterly properties.All in all, Zhang’s paintings evoke familiarity and memory in their vastness of collective illumination.Check out below for more photos of Subliminal Matrix and its opening night.The exhibition will run until 12th of October, 2021. 1:00 PM – 7:00 PM at Volery Gallery, Dubai International Financial Center, UAE. RSVP required. Book a visit here. More

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      “Subliminal Matrix” Solo Exhibition by Zhang Ji at Volery Gallery in Dubai, UAE

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      Zhang Ji is an artist whose sweeping-colours of paintings focus on mosaicked patterns or relief-centred geometrics, laid down edge to edge. Spare, elegant and texturized, his paintings offer a delicate balance between composition and decomposition, sturdiness and ephemerality. They begin as strikingly, repetitious patterns, but then move beyond, toward a consummate painterly expression.In this exhibition opening at Volery Gallery and entitled Subliminal Matrix, this precisely calibrated selection of 12 paintings, created from 2018 – 2020, demonstrates Zhang’s wholehearted engagement with the very structures and systems of painting. The series, simply titled The Skin of Truth, features the artist’s minimalistic yet richly intricate detailed artworks which appear to radiant into immediate material presence whereupon he shapes the aesthetical effect.“The Skin of Truth 58”, Oil on canvas, 2017Approximating a studied observation of sacred sites with their classical designs and backgrounds, Zhang possesses an instinctive talent for meticulously working in forms, shapes and structures. The Beijing-based artist is primarily drawn to the harmony and rhythm of religious architectonics for their tactility, physical presence, and in creating complex straight lines-making grids or parallel diagonals within fragments of decorated motifs.From earthy tones to magnetic blue and crimson red etc, Zhang used a variety of rich, bright hues as well as pure white, black and grey etc. His process calls attention to the paintings’ silken surfaces, loaded with oil paint; strengthened with the sheer physicality and expressive power of his medium. Gazing at these ethereal, atmospheric embossed-like paintings provide the viewers the sensation of a commanding optical quality, floating freely, bulged and ebbed, as if unanchored by gravity.Zhang sees his paintings as meditative. Thus, the resulting works are  calming, luminous forms rendered in an irresistible palette; striking for its subtle yet dramatic patch of illumination, which is perhaps their greatest appeal. It is a poetic exercise in giving colour and texture enough weight to stand alone, without the support of delineated forms.All in all, Zhang’s paintings evoke familiarity and memory in their vastness of collective illumination.Scroll down below to have a sneak peak on Subliminal Matrix exhibition.“The Skin of Truth 104” Oil on canvas, 2019“The Skin of Truth 9” 5Oil on canvas, 2018“The Skin of Truth 105” Oil on canvas, 2019 More

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      “I & the ME” Group Exhibition at THE SHOPHOUSE in Hong Kong

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      THE SHOPHOUSE gallery in Hong Kong is pleased to present group exhibition “I & the ME” by Anders Lindseth, Iabadiou Piko, Josh Reames,  Julian Watts, Kour Pour, Mahsa Tehrani, Osamu Kobayashi, Yves Scherer and Zhang Ji. Participating artists are invited to create two works, one representing “I”, the subjective side of the artists evaluating themselves. Another piece about “Me” – the objective side of themselves shaped by the market, exploring how artists rover around today’s art world.The exhibition is inspired by late 1800’s sociologist George Herbert Mead’s theory of self. Mead believes that the self is formed by the dynamic relations between the “I” and the “ME”. The “ME” is the others’ perspectives on ourselves – the “Objective part of self”. The “I” is the part of us that responds to these attitudes – the “Subjective part of self”.“The art world has radically transformed in the past thirty years, turning into a multibillion-dollar international industry. Artists and their career are becoming commanded by the market system, often packaged as a celebrity with unceasing output for the growing demand in consumer culture, sought after as profit generators of the commercial powerhouse. Would artists be affected in expressing themselves under such influence?”Scroll down below to view more photos from “I & the ME” exhibition. More