Josep Soler i Casanellas

Zhang Xiaotao

Zhang Xiaotao (张小 Born in 1970 in Hechuan, Chongqing, China) he lives and works in Beijing and Chengdu, China.

Zhang makes paintings with sexual imagery often involving small animals such as frogs and snakes, and incorporating images of putrefaction and pollution.[

He is an artist full of enthusiasm and good at argument. He is so talkatively repelling that no one could plunge himself into the conversation You could also be able to read his articles about the paintings (See his article "The antibody of Paintings----, issued on the 4th edition of "Art Contemporary" of 2006), or retrieve on his internet bookie which keeps down his art thinking as well to detect out his idea activities and the clear logic of his language. That he thinks so deeply makes us writers who do writing as our profession feels ashamed. He is very conservative, low-pitched and introspective.

At this context, Zhang's art in fact constitutes an individual verbalism similar to the circumstance of the present day's cultural reality but also of a criticizing capacity. Or the aiming of his artistic activities are all ignited by his real existence circumstance or drained from it. This feature is both of his free selection of being a margin and wandering-about, and also of his rebellion against tradition and the doubts about reality and worries. His works is not for a taste of the aesthetic culture in prevailing, but a wrestle between the social forces pro and against the social reality which is fighting hard, and that is the real charm of his art.

Oscillating between the macro and micro, the engulfing scale of Zhang Xioatao's paintings is at odds with his tiny subjects, each canvas encapsulating a sense of 'universe' within their humble depictions. Approaching painting as an archetype of beauty, Zhang's surfaces are vivacious in their intensely rich detail. Mesmerizing with lush textures and soulful hues, Zhang magnifies the conception of space and physicality, creating a sense of infinity within the minute and claustrophobic.

Other and former works: