Contemporary Chinese Artist, Zhang Xiaoming
"As a portrait painter, whatever their stylish approach, to give viewers the chance to be introduced to a real person, who the artist studied over many hours, are very great. " Sandy Nairne, Director of National Portrait Gallery, London
Zhang Xiaoming's painting, it presents the general truths and thoughts about our humanity which is through the most detailed, specific exploration of one individual. Zhang's work from people that interest him and he use them to invent his pictures with, this is reflected in the variety of individual faces. His portraits are the realization in paint of a relationship between the artist and his model that has developed time by time.
In Zhang's early stage of works, photography like practice of painting from woman face was linked to the pursuit of a lifelike representation of "external" reality. The photorealist style being tight and precise, often with an emphasis on imagery that requires a high level of technical prowess and virtuosity to simulate and reflect. Zhang inspirited by China Cultural Revolution, he created a series of "After Cultural Revolution: New Beijing and Shanghai Girl". That series is given mimetic power and vividness; it was seductive and compelling to reproduce the dialogue in between the nowadays woman and society.
Later on, Zhang's painting technique become exquisite and spiritual; his works come to include an amazing quantity of information about forms of the face and facial expression. He draws to the dramatically light, which he captured beautifully as it fell on pale flesh and rose smoke. In looking at his painting, we find ourselves scanning its extensive surface attending to the interpretation in paint of the magnified stunning of the skin, working out how Zhang has depicts eyes and lip. The face decomposes into painted banquet, recomposes into illusion of splendid fleshiness. Zhang's painting present the intimate and primary sense of what it is to be inside our skins. It also captures a state of mind, a sense of moment in a life, it is a strong presence of the moment he paints.
Which I think from Zhang Xiaoming's works, it expresses a person, a time, a state of being, a thought, a longing, it is beyond the painting.