Zhang Wei

‘Intense colours are interrupted by large sections of blank canvas. Incompatible hues come together in brutal clashes ending in a kind of calm dissonance, like an alchemic surrender between mortal enemies. Sometimes a huge canvas is occupied by only two or three strokes of a large brush, aided by a few accidental drops of paint. At other times the entire picture plane is occupied with seemingly random washes and strokes of paint exuding an unfamiliar attitude. There is a violent energy in many of Zhang Wei’s recent paintings, but it is not the central component of his canvases. Rather, it’s what mediates the energy that is essential. For all the brash contrast of colour and texture, what really defines Zhang Wei’s work is a sense of balance.’

C. S. Chinnery, ‘A colourful dissonance’, in Zhang Wei, exh. cat., Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler and Holzwarth Publications, 2017, p. 29