Zhang Enli

° 1965, Jilin (CN) – lives and works in Shanghai (CN)

Zhang Enli’s lyrical works on canvas are often inspired by seemingly ordinary objects, which can range from cardboard boxes to pieces of string, or aspects of everyday life, such as urban structures or landscape features. In such works, Enli strives to capture the immaterial and essential qualities of the object, such as the implications of weight, transparency, softness or flexibility.

Enli’s distinctive style—fluid, spontaneous and gestural—draws on both Eastern and Western painterly traditions. The flowing lines are reminiscent of traditional Chinese brush painting, for example, whereas visible grid lines point to the Renaissance technique of ‘squaring up’ a motif for enlargement and transfer to the canvas. Enli is a master of colour and light, preferring to work in thin washes of paint and clear, crystalline colours with dark contrasts. His lightness of touch lends his oeuvre an ethereal, harmonious and deeply evocative quality.

courtesy of Xavier Hufkens

Selected solo exhibitions include Galleria Borghese and the Uccelliera, Rome, ICA, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; Museo d’Arte contemporanea di Villa Croce, Genoa; and K11 Foundation, Shanghai.

Zhang Enli is represented by the following galleries;
click through to discover more of his work.

Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

Hauser & Wirth, Zurich / London / New York / Hong Kong / …

ShanghART, Shanghai 

Zhang Enli

works by Zhang Enli

Zhang Enli - Seventy Loops - 2016

Zhang Enli

Seventy Loops

1125,00

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