Xianwei Zhu 'beyond silence'

Beyond silence

In his works Xianwei Zhu has an intense focus on the tradition of art history and intellectual history. In his paintings the traditions of his homeland and the visual ideas of Western Europe meet. Zhu has shaped an aesthetic that creates fantastic poetry, in which narrative landscapes in which sceneries arise from elements of both traditions. Some elongated formats recall the hanging scrolls of Chinese ink painting. Related to this art form is the muted palette of color is applied in delicate gradations, even if Zhu works with oil and acrylic paints in the Western manner. In large works Zhu combines the sizes of smaller Chinese paintings with formats following the European tradition of large polyptichs.

The paintings are of a quiet, contemplative atmosphere. Xianwei Zhu prefers the representation of poetical outdoor-sceneries. Almost all of his works are bathed in light and show open landscapes. The landscapes stages rocks and mountains arising to the upper edge to show distance to the viewer as in the Chinese manner. In addition, the painter uses the color perspective and aerial perspective, as it was developed in Europe since Leonardo da Vinci to indicate the depth of a space. Therefore, the artworks of Xianwei Zhu are neither Chinese nor only European. They are aesthetically unique, innovative and individual. He has discovered his true artistic identity.

Colmar Schulte-Goltz