ART CITIES:Zürich- Zhang Enli

Zhang Enli has dedicated the past year to developing this abstract visual language, allowing his free handling of form and colour to flourish across the large-scale canvases. In his new exhibition “Intangible” presents new paintings that take inspiration from his abstract “Space Paintings”, marking a significant departure from the figurative renderings of utilitarian objects and nature, for which he is best known.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Hauser & Wirth Gallery Archive

For his new body of work, Zhang Enli has developed a looser Abstract language of gesture and movement whilst maintaining a deeply personal and contemplative approach to his subject matter. Realised in a palette of soft blues, greens and browns, the paintings encourage both a visual and experiential engagement with the artist’s sensitive perception of his surroundings, demonstrating a ceaseless, intense scrutiny of ways of seeing. Within this series, the paintings can be seen to follow three stylistic trajectories: one group formed from sweeping lyrical tendrils, another bearing muted, translucent swathes of wash, and a set presenting grid-like horizontal planes densely filled with frenzied brushstrokes. “Green Lines”’ (2016) bears the unmistakable trace of Zhang Enli’s earlier paintings of pipes, waterhoses and tangled wires. Yet, a perceptible shift has occurred between the identifiable everyday articles of those works, and the expressionistic, simplified delineations that appear here. “Yellow-Green” (2016), realised in a delicate range of chalky hues, calls to mind the landscape paintings of JMW Turner. The muted expanse of sea green, created from washes and waves of pigment, is interspersed with strokes of shimmering yellow light, while a grey storm brews on the horizon. In “Red-Green Brushwork” (2016), frantic angular motions come together to form an arrangement of squares or rectangles. The pencil-drawn grids in Zhang Enli’s earlier works have been viewed as a metaphor for ordering the chaos of contemporary life. In this work the strokes defy any attempts of order, as reds and browns collide with teals and blues, merging into one another.

Info: Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Limmatstrasse 270, Zürich, Duration: 12/10-23/12/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.hauserwirth.com