hong yi zhuang

Zhuang Hong Yi can best be described as a Chinese, contemporary artist who has impressed audiences in different countries by his unique style in his many pieces of modern art. His works represent beauty, sophistication and a high level of perfection with a clear presence of Chinese influence represented in his use of colors, themes, shapes and materials that touch the heart.

He was born in 1962 in Sichuan, China. After he had finished his artistic education at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute - the oldest and one of the most prestigious art academies in China - in Chongqing, he and his wife (the artist Lu Luo, b. 1971) moved to Groningen, The Netherlands, where they both became apprentices at the Minerva Academy. After finishing his studies in 1997, Zhuang quickly received recognition as an artist. Many exhibitions followed, for instance in the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam (1999) and a solo show in 2001 in the Groninger Museum, which is a preeminent internationally renowned Dutch museum for contemporary art. After this last show, Zhuang received invitations to present his spectacular works in museums and galleries all over the world. In 2007, the Groninger Museum honored him and his wife Lu Luo with a large duo exhibition called ‘Atelier Beijing’.

The fact that one can recognize features from his Chinese background which, at the same time, are gracefully combined with strong Western allure, is undoubtedly the result of his upbringing and education in China and the international experience and inspiration he has gained in Europe. Even after many years of residence in Europe, Zhuang still holds studios in Beijing, where he travels several times a year to work, collect new materials and to get inspiration, and Jingdezhen, where he paints and produces his porcelain works.

The flower motif dominates Zhuang’s work. He works patiently and religiously year after year on this subject alone. In Chinese culture the flower is a significant image, which carries countless meanings and emotions. Zhuang’s ‘flowerbeds’ are crafted from delicate pieces of painted rice paper, which the artist has bent and folded into hundreds of tiny buds. Utilizing a traditional Chinese material, the works also represent traditional Chinese aesthetics: they are meditations on color, nature and form.

The canvas paintings bear the influence of Impressionism and other Western artistic practices. Zhuang’s impasto strokes are expressive and unconfined. Colors melt together, and paint drips down the canvas, seeping over a collage of delicately unfolded rice paper flowers. The almost sculptural three-dimensionality makes his work both painting and object. Messiness, variety and chance are all ???embraced, evidencing Zhuang’s liberation in terms of both aesthetics and technique. Like the flowerbed works, these paintings draw the viewer in, encouraging contemplation as they immerse us in a tapestry of color and form.

Zhuang’s work is built upon his native country’s well-established artistic traditions and boundaries, which he has married with the Netherlands’ encouragement of freedom of style. Embracing his present without losing his past and he is attempting to define a sense of self that exists between the two. This is the personal struggle that Zhuang enacts visually and through his artistic process, which vacillates between phases of controlled planning, emotional gesture, and careful editing. Objects of appealing beauty, mysterious and alluring - at once both foreign and familiar - are the result.

The emphasis on technique and uniformity, and the focus on the artist’s handling of material are all lessons Zhuang adopted at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, where an academic attitude is predominant, focusing on traditional skills such as printing techniques (wood carvings and lithographies) and figure drawing after models. His work in The Netherlands is characterized by realism and figuration as well, although in a decreasing way. Typical are his ‘Head’-series; portraits, sometimes only the abstracted shape of a head, on large canvases. The rice paper flower finds his introduction towards the end of the 90’s, together with a collage-like technique. The ‘flowerfields’, where Zhuang is still famous for, are to be found in his work around 2005-2006.

Currently the artist, his wife and two children live in Capelle aan den IJssel, The Netherlands, where his large Dutch studio is located. Zhuang has exhibited in China, the U.S. and throughout Europe, including Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and Spain. He has been the subject of multiple museum exhibitions and his work is held in numerous esteemed public and private collections worldwide.


EXHIBITIONS

Selection of exhibitions by Zhuang Hong Yi:

2015 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands

2015 Group exhibition Rabobank Private Banking, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2014 Art Miami, USA

2014 Solo expositie, Interbrokers Miami, USA (solo)

2013 'Will Makes The World' in Beijing Found museum, China

2013 'World of Flowers' Leslie Smith Gallery, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Miami

2013 Museum Oude Wolden in Bellingwolde, The Netherlands

2013 Venice Biennale

2012 'World of Flowers' Leslie Smith Gallery, Amsterdam

2011 Exhibition of Contempory Asian Art, Mandarin Oriental, Miami, Florida

2010 Stadsmuseum Zoetermeer, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands

2010 Solo Exhibition Keszler Gallery, New York (solo)

2009 Keszler Gallery, Southampton, New York

2009 Art HongKong, HongKong, China

2009 Gallery Ralph Schriever C, Düsseldorf, Germany (solo)

2008 'Empty City' Shanghai YuanGong Museum, China

2008 'Art is nothing?' BeiJing 798. China

2007 You Gallery, Beijing, China (solo)

2007 Osage Gallery, HongKong, China (solo)

2007 Groninger Museum, Groningen-NL (solo)

2006 Ticket to Beijing-Amsterdam

2004 Gallery Le Besset, St. Jeure d’Andaure, France (solo)

2003 Art Contemporary Century, Dordrecht, Netherlands (solo)

2003 Gallery Art & Henle, Berlin, Germany

2003 Group Show in Poland, organized by Gallery EM

2002 De Boterhal, Hoorn, Netherlands (solo)

2002 Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands (solo)

2001 Stedelijk Museum, Zwolle, Netherlands

2001 ChenDu Biennale, ChengDu, China

2001 Groninger Museum,Groningen,The Netherlands Project 'Het Traject'

1999 Foundation de Boer Waalkens, Finsterwolde, Netherlands (solo)

1999 Westfries Museum, Hoorn, Netherlands

1999 Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands

1997 Gallery Waalkens, Finsterwolde, Netherlands (solo)

1997 Gallery Patrick Gaultier, Quimper, France (solo)

1993 Gallery Waalkens, Finsterwolde, Netherlands (solo)