Artist：Bruno Zhang
Curator：Xiao Ruiyun
Art Director: Teng Qingyun
Organizer: Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre
Duration: Apr 17, 2021– May 16, 2021
Opening：Apr 17, 2021 15:00
Venue: No. 301, Building 2, Xinglinwan Business Center, Jimei District, Xiamen
(Enter from the large platform connecting Building 1 and Building 2)
Preface to Bruno Zhang’s Solo Exhibition
Text/Xiao Ruiyun
The body and the landscape are the main imagery of Bruno Zhang's works, and also the symbolic and spiritual world he constructs. Zhang’s series such as The Other Side and Beyond the Mountains take advantage of the reproducibility and alterability of digital images to dismantle the outline of the figurative body and then reorganize it on canvas to present a non-inevitable and abstract world. This is Zhang's attempt to construct a new imagery expression from the original image to re-creation.
With splendid and disorienting colors, The Other Side presents a disorderly, chaotic, and even somewhat absurd world. Here, the body is both the mountains and the flowing water, as well as the grand universe. It is the fundamental of the whole world. At the same time, the body is also the individual who indulges in his or her desires, standing in the world made of flesh. Beyond the Mountains is a Zen-like expression in the form of montage. Similar to The Other Side, it builds upon original photo materials, but it is created a year later embodying a very different state of mind. This series blurs some body parts, ignoring the contours of real-world objects and freeing them from the constraints of appearances. The expressions in Zhang's works extract the spiritual and symbolic elements inherent in different cultures such as Tang Dynasty landscapes, Ukiyo-e and Karesansui, making the individual seem to be completely integrated into the landscape, which Zhang describes as "the murmur of the wordless mountains, echoing and then dissipating at the end of the world." 1 This strong sense of detachment allows the viewer to reach a deeper level of rationality.
We also hope to present Zhang's early creative practice in this exhibition. The series such as Red and Threshold Value start from model portraits and extract the surface of everyday life. He keenly captures visual emotions, including the flowing colors, the forms of objects, and even fragmented texts. These materials in different dimensions could be considered as Zhang’s initial creative collection.
The title of the exhibition, "The World Is None of Your Business", is like Zhang’s mumbling, which speaks of the contradiction between the mainstream and the margins and maps out the common life dilemma and spiritual crisis people are facing nowadays. The exhibition will present the subtleties of the world, such as the sounds surrounding it. We can also see the mysterious serial number on each work, which is the mark of Zhang's physical state left on the frame when he created it. The audience can also leave their own personal marks to complete the last three experimental works together, reconnecting in this world that is “none of your business.”
Note:
1 Interview with Bruno Zhang.
Bruno Zhang, born in 1987, is a man drawing with camera. He ever wandered abroad and lives in Guangzhou now.
Bruno Zhang majored in and graduated from traditional oil painting, he was fully obsessed with the photography world after owning the first camera of his life.
In 2013, Bruno Zhang studied in the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan for the master degree of photography. However, he founded traditional photography technology was not what he pursued, and by which he couldn't set up a surreal world in his mind, so he rebelled and escaped. He gradually fathomed the charm of digital art over the years, and decided to investigate thoroughly and explore more possibilities to apply comprehensive and distinctive traditional artistic means for purpose of building non-exact identical world.