RE-AURA: Zhang Xinyi

S2A presents the debut solo exhibition of an emerging Chinese artist, Zhang Xinyi, in Korea, titled RE-AURA. Drawing inspiration from important artistic movements and artists in art history, including classical painting, Zhang has established her own unique style and presence through her work. She creates motifs based on prominent art pieces that are frequently searched on the Internet. After forming the outline using a digital program, the artist simplifies the details of traditional drawing and painting techniques, including brushstrokes, contrast, and background detail of the original work. She then uses simple lines and bright colors to recreate the work with her own sense of sophistication and simplicity.

The exhibition focuses on the series ICON, which symbolically presents the relationship between Zhang’s artwork and classical paintings. Zhang selected artists representing different periods in art history as motifs in her series ICON including the following: Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519) in the Renaissance Period (14th-16th century); Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) in the Baroque Period (17th-18th century); Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) in Neo-Classicism (1750-1850); Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) in Romanticism (1800-1850); and Edouard Manet (1832-1883) in Impressionism (1870-1880).

Zhang boldly attempts a daring transformation of classical art that exudes an authoritative and solemn aura through the placement of contemporary objects or icons. By juxtaposing these elements, she challenges the drastic transformation and creates a totally different atmosphere in the artwork that was originally created by great artists depicting religious, mythological, and historical themes.

The word ‘Icon’ used in this series originally came from the Greek word ‘Eikon’, which referred to the sanctification of the Christian Church. However, in modern times, the word is used to refer to symbols that represent a specific person, or an image displayed on a computer. The artist drew inspiration from emoticons, which are often used to convey emotional expression in everyday conversation, permeate classic works of art, adding new interpretations to their stories.

The X button depicted in her work is mainly located at the corner of a rectangle, conveying the feeling of closing a monitor window and referencing the activity outside of the canvas. In addition to these symbols, contemporary objects such as tennis balls, lava cones, and earphones appear in the work, bringing together two different eras on the canvas and adding a contemporary perspective to the stories portrayed in the classic works of art. The world of Zhang’s art, which bravely recreates original works with a pleasant and simple aura that transcends time, adds new interpretations by reproducing the original while narrowing the gap between the past and present. At the same time, her artwork also serves as a bridge connecting the two, leading the viewer’s gaze and drawing them in.

Zhang says that looking at classical art is same as how we view history. Just as we read the biographies of historical figures to look back, reflect, and improve our lives, Zhang presents new perspectives and aesthetic senses that connect the past and the present through her works based on classic art as motifs.

As this is Zhang Xinyi’s first solo exhibition in Korea, RE-AURA presents a total of 47 artworks, ranging in size, including 18 pieces from the ICON series, 11 pieces from the self-portrait series of Vincent Willem Van Gogh (1853-1890), Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973), Yayoi Kusama (b.1929), and Nam June Paik (1932-2006), which represent the depicted artists from different eras in her own style, and 18 pieces from the ICON SKETCH series, where the audience can see the creative process behind the ICON series. Keeping pace with today’s fast-paced consumption of endless images, we hope that the viewers will have time experience a new perspective of painting through the ‘drawn’ images by Zhang Xinyi.