Beijing Artist Zhao Zhao: “One Second • One Year”

Description

The show centres around Zhao Zhao’s “One Second” drawings and “One Second” paintings, works that establish a dialogue about depictions of time.

To create the “One Second” drawings, the artist held in one hand ten pencils and within one second marked a piece of paper with a grouping of lines. From these spontaneous works, he then went about meticulously translating the hyper-realistic image onto canvas in oil paints, a process that took almost a year to complete.

Zhao Zhao’s “Jade Constellations” add to the original Constellations by introducing a new element – circles of jade – into the holes in the glass. For about 5,000 years, jade has been the most precious element in Chinese culture, cherished by Imperial dynasties and adapted as a ritual object.

To create these works, Zhao Zhao searched for jade elements at their source in Gansu Province, uncovering examples that were centuries old. By adding these jade circles or bi to his glass works, he is introducing the notion of time into the artworks, transforming them from spontaneous gestures into reflections on ancient rituals.