Steidlville

Zhang Enli’s paintings depict the familiar and overlooked, everyday objects that are connected through the artist’s immediate surroundings in China. Zhang Enli observes and examines in detail his environment and in an intuitive and fragmented manner translates this onto canvas. His brushstrokes come close to traditional Chinese ink painting, where every stroke articulates elements that are significant to the whole. Sometimes only fragments are revealed and works appear unfinished and incomplete, semi-transparent paintings where the canvas is visible, revealing the process of painting. Reproductions of Zhang Enli’s early paintings from 2005 to 2008 are also included, works which evolve around the unavoidable changes in contemporary China, changes he experienced personally when he moved from rural China to the megalopolis of Shanghai. This book also documents a pictorial environment based on the artist`s own residence, realized for Objectif_exhibitions in Antwerp in 2007.