Zhang Xiaogang

Paintings in his Bloodline series are predominantly monochromatic, stylized portraits of Chinese people, usually with large, dark-pupiled eyes, posed in a stiff manner deliberately reminiscent of family portraits from the 1950s and 1960s.

Recently, he also created sculptures, translating for the first time into three dimensions many characters of the sort seen in his "Bloodlines—Big Family" portrait series.

These sculptures have featured in many exhibits and continue his work as one of China's leading, and most highly sought-after, contemporary artists.

Zhang Xiaogang (born in 1958) is a contemporary Chinese symbolist and surrealist painter.

Zhang was born to parents Qi Ailan and Zhang Jing (both government officials) in the city of Kunming in China's Yunnan province in 1958, and was the third of four brothers.

Zhang's mother, Qi Ailan taught him how to draw as an exercise to keep him out of trouble:

"From early on, my parents worried that I would go out and get into trouble. They gave us paper and crayons so we could draw at home. . . . I gained more and more interest in art. I had a lot of time, because I didn't have to go to school. My interest increased. After I became an adult, I never gave up art. So that's how I started to draw."

His parents were taken away for 3 years by the Chinese government for re-education.

[3]He came of age during the 1960s and 1970s political upheavals known as the Cultural Revolution, which exerted a certain influence on his painting.

Chinese water color painter, Lin Ling trained Xiaogang in 1975, teaching him formal water color and sketching techniques.

"When I was 17, I told myself I wanted to be an artist. . . I felt that art was like a drug. Once you are addicted, you can't get rid of it."

In early 1976, Xiaogang was sent to work on a farm as part of the "Down to the Countryside Movement".

Upon the reinstitution of collegiate entrance exams, Xiaogang was accepted into the Sichuan Academy of Fine arts in 1977 where he began study oil based painting in 1978.

At the time of his collegiate education, Zhang's professors continued to teach styles of Revolutionary Realism as instituted by Chairman Mao.

This only served to inspire Xiaogang and his peers to opt for topics of western philosophy and introspective individualism while shunning political and ideological subject matter.

Zhang Xiaogang pursued the expressive and surreal style until the 1980s and early 90s.

In 1982, he graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in the city of Chongqing in Sichuan province but was denied a teaching post he had hoped for.

This led Zhang to fall into a period of depression between 1982 and 1985.

During this time he worked as a construction worker and art director for a social dance troupe in Kunming.

It was a time of intense self-examination for Xiaogang as he had difficulties fitting into society.

Suffering from alcoholism, he was hospitalized in 1984 with alcohol induced internal bleeding causing him to paint "The Ghost Between Black and White" series which put visual form to his visions of life and death in the hospital.

"At that time, my inspiration primarily came from the private feelings I had at the hospital. When I lay on the white bed, on the white bed sheet, I saw many ghost-like patients comforting each other in the crammed hospital wards. When night dawned, groaning sounds rose above the hospital and some of the withering bodies around had gone to waste and were drifting on the brink of death: these deeply stirred my feelings. They were so close to my then life experiences and lonely miserable soul."

In 1985, Xiaogang began to emerge from the dark time in his life and joined the New Wave movement in China that saw a philosophical, artistic and intellectual explosion in Chinese culture.

Zhang formed the South West Art Group in 1986 including fellow artists, Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehei, and Ye Yongqing among more than 80 others.

The group moved for 'an anti-urban regionalism' and also explored individual desire which according to Zhang had been suppressed by collectivist rationalization.

They created self funded exhibitions which were a foundational step in the Chinese Avant-Garde movement.

In 1988, Zhang was appointed as an instructor at Sichuan Academy's Education Department and married later that year.

He took part in the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition in 1989 at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.

However, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre abruptly ended this period of liberal reform.

But after his trip to Europe in 1992, his style changes greatly.

Zhang traveled to Germany in 1992 for 3 months gaining unprecedented perspective on his own Chinese cultural identity.

Upon returning he had a newfound desire to explore and revitalize his own personal past along with recent Chinese history through painting.

During his three - month stay in Germany, Zhang spent most of his time analyzing works by Western artists in museums.

And he thought about his position as a Chinese artist.

He said "I looked from the 'early phase' to the present for a position for myself, but even after this I still didn't know who I was. But an idea did emerge clearly: if I continue being an artist, I have to be an artist of 'China.'"

In Europe, too, Zhang begins to think about the Chinese face and reflects why he has brought images of people in books and magazines, not in actual surroundings.

Returning from Europe, Zhang Xiaogang was engaged in painting activities at Mao Xuhui's studio.

He picked Tiananmen Square as the first theme and painted it using expressive strong brush touch.

It also begins to survey the faces of the surrounding Chinese.

At this time, the photographs of the past quadruple found at the parents' house became a dramatic turning point.