Oil on canvas

90 × 130 cm. 35 3/8 × 51 1/8 in.

Signed in initials and dated on bottom right

LITERATURE
2017, Zhang Yexing 2010-2017, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, p. 61
EXHIBITED
15-18 May 2014, Art Basel Hong Kong, Booth of Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Hong Kong

PROVENANCE
Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

Time is but a Dream, the Human Gaze
The Unspoken Words of Zhang Yexing

"In the adjustment process, the image is continuously scraped away and reworked, gradually forming a mellow feeling. And I used to move the discarded paint to the edge of the frame. They accumulate into natural shapes as if it’s the extension of the painted world into the reality of space."
——Zhang Yexing

Zhang Yexing was born in Shenyang in 1981 and graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. From 2010 to 2017, he embarked on a series of narrative paintings inspired by the stage. The scenes depicted in his works often feature uninhabited enclosed spaces. With a solid foundation in technique, he repeatedly scrapes and layers oil paint with a palette knife, creating a three-dimensional texture that gradually extends beyond the canvas. He intends to connect the virtual and real worlds inside and outside the painting, prompting viewers to unconsciously engage in deductive reasoning with the elements in the composition. Since 2007, he has published his works worldwide. The presented work, Blue Wall Room, completed in 2013, employs the technique of "picture-in-picture" to depict a private and enclosed bedroom in 1990s, through precise geometric elements.

Time is not Dyed, the Story is to be Continued

On the right side of the composition, a pale yellow door precisely separates the bedroom into two distinct spaces. The exterior bedroom wall is divided into two parts by the blue colour paint. A wooden bed is snugly positioned against the wall on the left, adorned with a bed sheet featuring alternating red and blue vertical stripes, creating a parallel arrangement. The quilt and pillows are folded into "tofu blocks" and hidden under the yellow and white horizontal coverlet at the head of the bed, the pattern of which happens to be perpendicular to the bed board. Corresponding to this is a white cubic stool by the bed, covered with a cushion. The brightest spot in the composition is the polka-dotted door curtain leading to the inner room. The dots on the curtain are neatly arranged, and the mosaic-like grid-patterned ceramic tiles come to an abrupt halt here. The door curtain was gently lifted at one corner, and the door was half closed. The ubiquitous atmosphere of life seems to imply that the display inside is completely different from the neat outside, making the audience become more anticipated and curious about everything in the inside.

It is worth noting that the artist used the wonderfully nostalgic American fitness posters on the wall to profile the lifestyle of the owner of the house. This girl in a bikini with her hips thrust out, this guy standing upright with his arms crossed. The work makes the viewer decipher the hidden people in the painting through the simple bedroom elements. And the oil colours are scraped beyond the canvas, solidifying new boundaries, like a story framed in an intriguing way. The times and people are moving forward, and these scenes will always stay in a certain time and space if the story in the memory will never end.

Price estimate:
HKD: 100,000 - 150,000
USD: 12,800 - 19,200

Auction Result:
HKD: 156,000