Seeking Traces
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24 Mar 2026 - 23 May 2026 |
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12:00PM (Tue) |
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Kiang Malingue |
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Free admission |
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24 Mar 2026 - 23 May 2026 |
|
|
12:00PM (Tue) |
|
|
Kiang Malingue |
|
|
Free admission |
Kiang Malingue is pleased to present at its Hong Kong space Seeking Traces, Zheng Zhou’s fifth exhibition with the gallery, showcasing recent paintings by the artist.
Zheng Zhou’s 2024 exhibition Spanish Grilled Fish at Kiang Malingue’s Hong Kong space continued the artist’s fascination with multifaceted, uncanny characters: his figures appear blurred, often rendered as simplified silhouettes, while layers of colour, decidedly saturated or subtly muted, weave these ethereal characters into profoundly alluring, vibrant environments. The current exhibition showcases the artist’s radical shift towards abstraction in recent years: rectangular colour blocks emerge irregularly as a recurring motif across multiple works, charting elementary chromatic networks through vibrant or deep hues like titanium white, scarlet, violet, and cobalt blue. In this new series, the mystifying narratives found in Zheng Zhou’s previous works give way to unrestrained rhythms: sweeping colour blocks cover the canvas like billowing brocade, producing a visual experience that is intricately layered and variegated.
Zheng Zhou (b. 1969, China) is a painter of instinct, conveying onto canvas observations from the world, as ad hoc as they may be. His strokes, furtive yet decisive, depict an urgency to grasp that mesmeric multitude of the cosmos, the ‘phenomena’ we, or more precisely he, is a witness to. Referencing ‘I Ching’ (“The Book of Changes”), Zheng channels the astronomical, remarking the myriad of components that make up our universe, mimicking its duplicity through his subject range, hues and techniques.
A prolific painter, Zheng debuted by studying Printmaking at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, which led to a post at the Printmaking Department of the China Academy of Arts from 1994 to 1996. Zheng subsequently shifted his creative practice towards one of painting, pursuing a Masters in Oil Painting at the China Academy of Art from 1997 to 1999, following which he became a lecturer at the China Academy of Art Affiliated High School from 2000-2010. Throughout these years of tuition and pedagogy, Zheng painted systematically and doggedly, before relocating to Beijing in 2013 to work as an artist. Zheng Zhou’s works have been collected by White Rabbit Collection, Sydney and APSMUSEUM, Shanghai.
