pages torn from magazines or things in shops. More interestingly though, Zhang often uses a camera that he carries with him everyday to capture images he wants to paint. Zhang Huan (1965) Zhang's works are both highly personal and politicised, dealing with complex issues of identity, spiritualism, vulnerability, and transgression. His practice focuses on no one particular media but rather incorporates a wide variety of tactics – from performance to photography, installation, sculpture, and painting -- utilising each method for its physical and symbolic associations. This unique approach to making reinforces the interconnectivity of the concepts and recurrent motifs running throughout of Zhang's work, and mirrors an underlying sentiment of shared human experience and bond. Zhang Hui (1967) Zhang graduated from Beijing's Central Drama Academy in 1986 and was a leading figure in the collaborative artistic activities of the "Post Sense: Sensibility" Group of the late 1990s, together with other established artists such as Liu Wei, Zhu Yu and Qiu Zhijie. Zhang's oeuvre explores the space where the normal and the abnormal, reality and the subconscious meet. With his training in stage and set design, it is not surprising to see the consistent reference to theatricality and spatial awareness in Zhang's oeuvre. In his recent works, Zhang continues his performative exploration of time and space. Over the years, Zhang has participated extensively in exhibitions around the world, including 'Farewell to Postcolonialism: the Third Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China, 2008; 'Partial Zones', Long March Space, Beijing, China (solo), 2007; 'Buzz…,' Multimedia performance, Taipei Museum of Art, Kao-Chung Museum of Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2005. Zhang Jiebai (1980) Now living and working in Beijing, Zhang graduated from Paris' renowned Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 2008. Despite his youth, Zhang has already gained international recognition, with several solo shows in Geneva and Paris even before graduation. The most salient characteristic of Zhang's paintings is their haunting pallor. With a restrained palette of greys and whites, Zhang's deliberately muted works strike a delicate balance between abstract and representational. Zhang Peili (1957) Widely regarded as the "father of Chinese video art", Zhang was the first Chinese artist to create a video art work in 1988, taping himself washing a chicken, over and over again, as an example of the absurdities of modern China. His works is often infused with sharp social and political commentaries. Another well known piece“Water: Standard Pronunciation,” tapes a former television news broadcaster reading all the words in a Chinese dictionary that start with water into the camera like a newscast. The piece was widely viewed as a critique of the official news media in China and how the nation’s broadcasters jabber endlessly without saying much, yet the viewer is awash in an ocean of words. Zhang Wei (1985) Born in Inner Mongolia, 1985, he currently lives and works in Hangzhou. Graduated from Chinese academy of fine arts with a master‘s degree. His work includes paintings and installation works, which focus on the similarities and differences of various performance media. Zhang Zhen Xue (1982) One of the rising stars from the new generation of Chinese artists, Zhang graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Academy, specialising in oil painting. Zhang has had a number of exhibitions across China and was awarded the John Moores New Painting Prize in 2010. Zhao Xuebing (1967) Zhao started painting at an early age but it was after spending seven years living and working in Paris (2002-07) and New York (2007-09) that his international recognition really took off. During this period, Zhao exhibited in a number of biennales and institutions including the Salon de Montrouge (France, 2006), the Senlis Biennale of contemporary art (France, 2007), and Pierogi Gallery New York (USA, 2008). Zhao is best known for his masterful representation of light and dexterity on lines. Zhao Zhao (1982) A graduate from the oil painting department at Xinjiang Institute of Arts, Zhao quickly realised that his aesthetic language is best expressed through performance. He understands art as a "performative, gestural way to provoke as well as mediate alternative realities in pursuit of new subjectivities." Zhao's first performance piece was conceptualised while he was still an art student in Xinjiang. Since then, he has exhibited in numerous galleries and institutions around the world. What sets Zhao apart from his peers is the diversity of his skills - it is almost impossible to define Zhao's oeuvre in terms of a certain style or medium. Zhen Xu (1977) Born in 1977, Xu graduated from a technical college (Shanghai Art & Design Academy) in 1996, turned his back on the traditional art education system and moved to Beijing to immerse himself in its flourishing art scene. He returned to Shanghai after a year of living in Beijing, and in 1998, he cofounded the “bizarre”, not-forprofit, BizArt Centre, selling works to fund other non-marketable art projects. The first of its kind in China, BizArt instantly became a hub for emerging artists; in Xu’s continuing parody of corporate identity and business ethos, all marketing and PR materials were deliberately glossy and “commercial”. At the age of 24, Xu became the youngest-ever Chinese artist to participate in the Venice Biennale (2001). In the ensuing years leading up to the Beijing Olympics (2008) when the Chinese cultural system saw its most dizzying acceleration, Xu’s projects became ever more flamboyant and astounding. MadeIn Company was launched in 2009 when Xu Zhen, the artist, became the company’s CEO. This deliberate departure from his personal artistic identity could be seen as a rejection of the persona-driven contemporary art world; at the same time, it acknowledges his constant principle that his art has always been a collaborative effort. Taking his concept of creation to even newer heights, MadeIn Company launched the “Xu Zhen” brand in late 2013. Several of these new works were produced for the midcareer retrospective currently at Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, aptly entitled Xu Zhen: A MadeIn Company Production (19 January – 20 April 2014). Zheng Chongbin (1961) For over twenty years, Zheng has been exploring two issues that mesh in his works: how can the possibilities of ink as a medium be extended, and how can a new expression of depth and structure be incorporated into ink painting? In 1986 he discovered a pair of materials that, in combination with ink, brought new visual interest as well as new technical possibilities to ink painting: white acrylic paint and fixer. In addition to adopting unorthodox media, Zheng Chongbin has been using the paibi or broad brush in place of traditional brushes. He has found that using the broad brush changed his painting behavior: "in terms of understanding space, qiyun (spirit resonance) is essential." Over the years, he has found inspiration in both early Chinese landscape compositions, and in Western contemporary and Baroque figure painters, as well as abstract expressionism. Zheng Guogu (1970) Zheng is a versatile conceptual artist who works with a variety of media, including photography, installation, painting and sculpture. His artistic output dwells on the media, consumerism and the rapid changes in China. What is interesting about Zheng is that he belongs to a generation, which grew up with Coca-Cola, Kung Fu movies, pop music, and TV games. Different from those older generation in the uncertainty of Cultural Revolution of the 70s, and in the optimistic Utopia of the 80s, there is no ideology and idealization among this new generation. His sculptural work often combines enduring and imperious materials with unorthodox and fragile substances, the physicality of his forms operating as both tactile and symbolic matter. His sculptures often make reference to China's fast expanding economy in relation to its millennia-old history, humorously posing the transient icons of commodity culture and frivolous indulgence as indestructible antiergonomic ballasts. Zheng Haozhong (1985) Zheng graduated from Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008 and was awarded the John Moores Prize (Painting) from Liverpool University in 2014. Zheng’s paintings are at once figurative and abstract, and should be viewed as a series with each painting expressing just one specific feeling or idea. It is through experiencing the entire sequence of works in an exhibition that the viewer can truly appreciate the artist’s innermost thoughts. Working directly from real-life subjects, Zheng typically spends days with his models and a crucial part of his creative process is the meticulous filming and documentation of his work-inprogress, allowing the audience to fully immerse themselves in the artist’s mind.
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