Plus Gallery

XI ZHANG | Exit: Childtown

UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art

ENT Center for the Arts, Colorado Springs, CO

April 6 - July 1st, 2023

A timely, broad and carefully composed selection of paintings from Xi Zhang’s Metallic Leaf Garden Series 2019 - 2022, with additional works on paper never before displayed in the “Rogues Gallery.” Curated by Ivar Zeile

View Xi Zhang’s opening night lecture from April 6th at Chapman Auditorium HERE

View Ivar Zeile’s guest curator talk from July 17th HERE

EXHIBITION INSTALLATION VIEWS

Xi Zhang: UCCS Visiting Artists and Critics Series / opening night lecture April 6th at Chapman Auditorium

PAINTINGS

Xi Zhang - Exit Childtown
By Ivar Zeile, February 2023

Practically from the moment he arrived in Colorado back in 2004, the Chinese born artist Xi Zhang has been showered with accolades, becoming one of the region’s most thought-provoking artists on the contemporary stage. After receiving national painting awards from his homeland during his youth, Zhang left China in his late teens for the vastly different cultural cauldron of the United States. Upon his arrival in Denver, he immersed himself in studies at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, where instructors Clark Richert and Irene Delka McRay influenced him at a time when painting had once again resurged across all markets. His career took off through explosive exhibitions that defied the imagination, and created a rallying cry for the local contemporary collector community. Zhang’s raw talent and fascinating history combine into a singular voice that has now moved beyond his early flashpoints into something altogether more reflective and magnificent. 

The major shift in his career began nearly a decade ago when Zhang established his expansive Metallic Leaf Garden series. A dramatic change in his environment emboldened Zhang towards this vigorous new exploration, one he has pushed forward unceasingly ever since. Defined as “how the individual's mind reshapes one's physical environment,” it is a massive, compelling undertaking that stands as a “coming of age” for the artist. One originating from a communist culture within a family of deep artistic roots. 

Exit: Childtown affords an opportunity to take stock of the enormous evolution in his work through the single largest collection from within the Metallic Leaf Garden series delivered to the public to date. Across the series, Zhang builds a nonlinear narrative centered in allegory, forging a direction he had long sought to realize through his rich imagination. Zhang maintains his fearless, experimental tendencies, grounded by deep thought, that draw the viewer's attention. Zhang has clearly chosen to explode the sensibilities and successes of his early initiatives. Now opting for something more spiritually absorbing, immensely human and timeless; pulling the viewer in more deeply through a scale that parallels the ambitions of the work. The influence of abstract expressionism, vast throughout his early career, is brought forward with stunning resilience, infiltrating each and every square inch of his figurative compositions much like the work by the late, great Alice Neel. Zhang’s broad context and vivid imagination present reality in its most dreamlike form through a richness of color and composition that varies widely across the entire expanse of his “garden.” It is no surprise that he has dedicated his wide ranging, attentive spirit to its ongoing cultivation and care. 

Nothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles. - Charlie Chaplin, from the film “The Kid,” 1921. 

Like his childhood hero Charlie Chaplin, Zhang’s hardships transformed upon his arrival in the US, where he was quickly embraced for his unabashed candor and visual dexterity. Zhang credits Chaplin as one of his primary influences, exulting in his ability to make light of the greatest tragedies through humor. The tragicomic appeal of Chaplin, alongside the colorful ways that children think, continue to be tremendous influences on Zhang. His energetic canvases captivate us, swirling in color and animated gestural strokes. The expansive spectrum he conjures to make his magnetic compositions draw deeply from within his memory bank and far away roots. 

The paintings on exhibit in Exit: Childtown are calibrated around the artist’s authentic voice and recognition of the existential complexities that confronts today’s youth, wrought with undeniable compassion. Now in a position to mentor emerging artists, Zhang’s role as a professor of painting has grounded his perspective, exposing positions centered on how youth development affects our world and why it should be more influential today. Zhang is well aware that the plight of youth lies in circumstances that are beyond anyone’s control, whether it be the relentless tug of war amongst political factions, or the extreme reliance on media, an all consuming, profoundly polarizing presence that is consistently reaching to achieve a higher gear. As Zhang puts it, “we trust TV more than we do history.”  What might we expect of youth when so few in society function like adults anymore? 

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it. - Charlie Chaplin 

These struggles are amplified through Zhang’s daily commutes via public transportation, where he experiences those who, like him, are in pursuit of an American Dream that is becoming increasingly more illusory. His emphasis on the subtle separation between the lower and middle classes, as rendered in “The White Collars” and “Aorta,” speaks volumes about this mirage, the figures tethered to their circumstances while sharing in transport. Hooded figures, wandering listlessly, oblivious to their surroundings in Zhang’s “Ghost Town,” contrast with the stately, futuristic looking “Walkers”. The figures’ reliance on technology only serves to distract, offering protection while threatening complete detachment from reality. Zhang confronts these issues, and others, through an often playful approach intended to lay bare their essence. 

Childhood is a curse, a fate, and a privilege. It proves us to be dependent creatures, and it is never fully concluded. Moreover, it forces us to build a backbreaking, binding, and artificial higher authority, a society. - Santiago Alba Rico, from the essay “Children,” Solution 275-294 Communists Anonymous, Ingo Neirmann and Joshua Simon Editors, Sternberg Press, 2017

For Zhang, childhood has become a permanent state of mind, infecting the population across wide swaths of our social, political, and entertainment spheres. Often seeking to claim “enlightenment” while overlooking the dangerous impacts, more distant than ever in today’s compartmentalized society.  It’s not hard to accept this position, one that has transcended current capitalist and communist systems. As an individual who has straddled both existences, Zhang’s ability to assess and interpret the territory is uniquely positioned without staking allegiance to either side. His ability to translate the oneness of history and all living beings into luminous, riveting paintings throughout Metallic Leaf Garden is like a steady stream across multiple channels, enchanting the viewer with limitless diversions and unsettling sequels.

There must be positive proof that the man or woman, girl or boy, whose likeness is added to the Rogue’s Gallery of the Detective Police, is an incorrigible offender. -  First known use of the term “Rogues Gallery,” New York Times, 1857

Xi Zhang pursued an equally inventive, robust drawing practice leading up and through the early stages of the bold paintings in Metallic Leaf Garden, a consistent companion that provided a wealth of absorbing material, the majority of which has never been seen publicly in any context. The works presented in the Rogues Gallery, as part of Exit: Childtown, capture a small parcel of this endeavor. They showcase Zhang’s fascination with exploring the many faces of humanity while also confronting his more playful side, rooted in his love of pop icons as well as a rather sinister exploration of the internet. Presented here in snapshot bursts, a different side to Zhang’s practice emerges, one of rich, distinct aesthetics, subtle mark making, and otherworldly compositions that manage to tantalize our senses on a more intimate scale. The opportunity to unearth these gems adds additional spice to the array of major works delivered in Exit: Childtown. 

Images from exhibition opening reception and Xi Zhang lecture, held April 6, 2023

Photos by Stellar Propeller Studio, for Galleries of Contemporary Art at UCCS, 2023

Plus Gallery is currently offering a rare and fascinating suite of works on paper by Chinese born artist Xi Zhang, one of the most collected and admired artists we’ve had the pleasure to support over the last two decades. Executed between 2011 and 2016, the works define the ambitious studio practice that led up to Zhang’s current body of work Metallic Leaf Garden, constituting primarily large scale canvases executed in acrylic paint and also highly recommended. The intricate and highly detailed Yellow Machine series, executed in pencil and pen on paper, contain a panoply of pop culture, social media and a wide range of character references that form the core of Zhang’s artistic passion. The ASO works on gold leaf and other illustration boards sent directly to the artist from China explore the artist’s fascination with selfie culture as a new cult derived from social media and the overwhelming influence of technology in the lives of the new generation. These are absolute, riveting gems, graced by backgrounds referencing traditional Chinese motifs laced with graffiti, with only a handful more from this massive and successful series still available. The more nuanced and cohesive works that make up the artists sprawling MVW series pay homage to Zhang’s master influences Edward Munch and Vincent Van Gogh, with mark making as well as gestural watercolor applications that embodying the spirit of humankind and would make either artist proud. The MVW series was an elaborate exploration as a build up to Metallic Leaf Garden that is profound in its own presence, and fascinating when viewed collectively as witnessed in Zhang’s most recent and prestigious solo exhibition Exit Childtown, which took place at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Colorado Springs’ Ent Center for the Arts in 2023.

Protected in simple white wood frames, and ranging in price from $950 up to $1,800, these works on paper are exceptional acquisitions for any mature, serious collector that is seeking the rare and profound reference points for an artist of today of exquisite talent and thoughtful grace. Contact ivarzeile@gmail.com for more detailed information regarding purchase.

Images from the Artist’s Opening Reception