Zhong Biao is one of the most unusual and modern figures among the Chinese contemporary artists working today.

Born in 1968 in Chongqing, he studied art at the fine arts academy in Hangzhou, then became a professor at the Sichuan academy of fine arts. At just 35, this artist has already established an internationally recognized career, showing his work not only in China but also in museums and art galleries around the world, from London, Brussels, and Amsterdam to Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, and Bangkok.

  His work, extremely avant-garde, questions notions of time in China today, and focuses on the country’s rapidly advancing transformation, whether economic, architectural, esthetic, or emotional--rapid changes that intrigue, excite, and stimulate most contemporary Chinese artists. Zhong Biao’s works address the resulting blend of Asian and Western cultures, and the adjustment this metamorphosis forces upon the young generation.

  His paintings utilize the flawless pictorial techniques of the classical beaux-arts academies with great virtuosity, so that they border on Hyperrealism. His canvases present figurative, narrative scenes, where the protagonists, like beings from another planet, are propelled into a world in utter transformation.

   Frequently, his subjects are trendily dressed modern young women: sexy mutants from the new world who seem stereotyped, artificial, like massmanufactured Barbie dolls. By placing these creatures in suggestive poses (they seem posed for sports or sexual activity) in intimate settings (bedrooms or bathrooms), he sets up a disturbing eroticism. Solitary, they read, dream, play games, or simply give themselves over to narcissistic contemplation. Yet they seem detached, like phantoms of the world around them, panoramic views of spectacular, futuristic cities that are stuck to the surrounding décor as in a collage. Like autistic butterflies on the roofs of a science-fiction world (picture Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner), these dreamers abandon themselves to the vertigo of dizzying perspectives, weightless and baroque, on empty terraces. Cities of light and their dazzling skyscrapers frame these figures as if in billboards advertising real-estate projects, echoing the recent construction frenzy in Chinese megapoles.

  Both intoxicated and disturbed by his rapidly changing world, Zhong Biao sets up a counterpoit, reminding the viewer of ancient China, a colorful, omnipresent presence which appears in his work in the form of cultural icons: porcelain vases (as in the “Green Family Ming dynasty”); terra cotta Tang warriors; or Chinese people in traditional costume invade space and airports, silent and ironic.

  Such incongruous, anachronistic combinations, such spatial distortions, such colorful contrasts are there to express what most affects Zhong Biao : the distortion of time itself and its relativity. He creates a time machine to explore the chaos and the commotion, in a cacophonous mixture of past, present, and
future.

  The pictorial technique that defines his work is the juxtaposition of black and white with color. He uses this contrast to enhance visual impact, associating thisvisual shock with the contrast in Asian and Occidental cultures, and the difficulty for the contemporary Chinese population to assimilate this brutal
intrusion. Above all, he utilizes black and white as certain film directors or photographers might, to reflect the dissociation of past and present.
   His contemporary characters are represented in black and white, as if in old photographs, and increase the feelings of melancholy and loss engendered by this view of the past. Since man is essentially ephemeral, Zhong Biao anticipates his disappearance by projecting his characters into history before their time. Little known and little seen, human beings become elements of the past for him.
As a painter, he dematerializes them; he fossilizes them and inscribes them in his album of “dearly departed.” His attitude toward the environment differs considerably from that toward people. Since, for him, architecture and cities do not die, they survive man, keeping their tangible reality, he represents them in color.

  As Zhong Biao mixes images in each picture, combining contradictory elements from existence, he hopes the spectator will perceive this energy. He offers the viewer the possibility to interpret his paintings in a highly personal, intuitive manner, in relationship to his own experience and his own life.

Texte by Véronique Maxé Translation by Laurie Attias

ZHONG BIAO BIOGRAPHIE
Born 1968 in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, China

Education
1987 Studied at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (China Academy) Hangzhou,
China

Exhibitions
2003
A Chinese Oasis, Art Scene China, Shanghai, China
Art Chicago 2003, Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois, USA

2002
Summer Exhibition, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, Colorado, USA
Art Chicago 2002, Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Art Miami 2002, Miami Beach Convention Ctr, Miami, Florida, USA

2001
A Chance Existence, Solo-Exhibition, Art Scene China, Hong Kong
SF4 2001, San Fransisco International Art Exhibition, Fort Mason, San Francisco, USA
Chinese Faces, Group Exhibition, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Chinese Culture Week, El Salvador and Sao Paolo, Brazil
Chilli from Chongqing, Kultur Bahnhof, Kassel, Germany

2000
Out of the Box, Art Scene China, Hong Kong
At the New Century: 1979-1999, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Exhibition of the Collection of Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Work auctioned at Christie’s Hong Kong
Chinese Muren, Chinese Walls, Groengingen, Netherlands
Exhibition at Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China

1999
The Ninth Annual Art Exhibition of China, Shanghai, China
The Northeast and Third World Art Exhibition, Seoul, South Korea
Joint Exhibition of Chinese-Vietnamese Oil Painting, Singapore
1990’s Pop pictures, Shanghai
As Beautiful as Materialism – Chinese New Concepts, Shanghai, China
1999 Academic Exhibition, Upriver Gallery, Chengdu, Sichuan Province
China
1999 Open Channels – First Annual Exhibition of the Collection of the Yu Museum of Fine Arts, Shenyang, China

1998
Confused-Reckoning With the Future, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Urban Personality-Contemporary Chinese Art, Chongqing, China
Asian Avant-Garde, Christie’s London, United Kingdom
5+5 Russian and Chinese Paintings, Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong

1997
The Fable of life, Solo Exhibition, Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong
Walking to a New Century-Young Chinese Oil Painting, Beijing, China

1996
Art Miami 96, Miami Beach Convention Center, USA
Elevenses – The Avant-Garde, Taikoo Place, Hong-Kong

1995
From Realism to Past to Modernism, Gallery Theoremes, Brussels, Belgium
Art Asia 95, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Hong Kong
The First Taipei Art Fair (TAF 95), Tapai Worde Trade Center, Taiwan

1994
The 8th National Art Exhibition, Chengdu Art Museum, Sichuan Province, China

1993
The First Bi-annual Chinese Oil Paintings exhibition, China National Art Museum, Beijing, China

1991
Art Festival of the West Lake, Hangzhou, China and Japan

1990
The Second Chinese Sport Art Exhibition, China Art Museum, Beijing, China