Oil on canvas

150×200 cm. 59×78 3/4 in.

Titled, signed in Chinese , and dated on the reverse
EXHIBITED
19 – 23 May 2021, Art Basel Hong Kong, Soka Art Booth, Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

PROVENANCE
Soka Art, Beijing
Acquired directly by present private Asian collector from the above

Transcendental Space of Consciousness and the Illusion of Expansion
Zhang Yingnan's Poetic Work of Hope and the Unknown

"These works all belong to the landscape of my heart, a process of introspection and inner dialogue."
—— Zhang Yingnan

Born in the 1980s and upon graduating from the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts in 2005, Zhang Yingnan relocated to Beijing. His works are known for their calmness and subtlety, as well as dramatic tension and a mystical undertone. Since 2017, he has been represented and appreciated by Soka Art and Hive Center for Contemporary Art. He has held numerous solo shows in Beijing, Taipei, and Seoul, and his works have appeared at art fairs in China and abroad. His auction results have exceeded one million HKD in 2023, a testament to the popularity of his work. The current lot, Loft, was created in 2021 and entered a private collection after its debut at Art Basel Hong Kong in the same year. This work is not only a fine piece of the artist's meticulous spatial organization and dreamlike colour palette, which merges the artist's classic visual vocabularies: infinitely expanding space, doors, suspended globes and symmetrical compositions.

Searching Infinite Possibility in a Liminal Space

Loft takes the viewer to a secluded place with yellow and green shimmering light, where orderly lines create a sense of strangeness under tranquility, and tension in midst of order. The painting stretches out from the centre; it appears to be a closed space, yet, through the deliberate arrangement of doors, stairwells and corridors, the artist opens up possibilities and constructs a liminal space. In this space, an orb pokes out from the ground, adding a sense of surreality to the work while alluding to the hope that lies hidden.

The scene in Loft combines the artist's memories of his hometown, where many Soviet-built houses are located, with his imagination of Chernobyl architecture based on photographs he saw occasionally. This feeling of déjà vu brought by these unfamiliar images gave him great room for imagination, forming a new kind of memory, which he put into the painted picture.

Voicing Humanity and Hope in No Man's Land

"The use of certain visions glimpsed between sleeping and waking, such in general were the means devised to force objects out of the ordinary, to become sensational, and so establish a profound link between consciousness and the external world."
——René Magritte, Belgian artist

Zhang's works maintain a sense of spatial order, implying the suppression of human nature in contemporary society. Like the luminous sphere hidden within the cold and linear structure in Loft, the artist "places passion under order, forming a counterforce and, then, letting it erupt." Similarly, he "squeezes" human nature out of an inhospitable environment, as well as the subtle emotion of anticipating the dawn of hope.

Where do the closed doors lead? Where is the beginning and where is the end? Is the globe in the distance real or an illusion? These binary oppositions disappear once the viewer enters Zhang's aesthetic universe, leaving behind tranquility, which is the ultimate state of painting to him.

Price estimate:
HKD 350,000 – 550,000
USD 44,900 – 70,500