LONDON.- Jichi Zhang, a young artist born in 2001 in Hohhot, China, and now based in London, is swiftly carving a distinctive niche in the contemporary art world. His work is a profound meditation on impermanence, fragility, and the quiet beauty of the ephemeral. Zhang’s practice, rooted in the use of post-industrial materials like plastic packaging, bubble wrap, and transparent sheathing, transforms the mundane into poetic gestures that challenge conventional notions of visibility, permanence, and spectacle. His upcoming solo exhibition am at Absent Gallery in Guangzhou (2025) and his extensive participation in group shows across prestigious venues such as the Saatchi Gallery, the National Gallery, and the Louvre Museum signal an artist whose vision resonates on a global stage.
Pre-am (1), 2025 install shot.
Zhang’s material choices—discarded, temporary objects like plastic bags, cigarette wrappers, and industrial coverings—are not merely aesthetic decisions but philosophical inquiries. These materials, designed for utility and disposability, are repurposed in his hands to evoke a state of “in-betweenness”.
In pieces like The port of Los Angeles (2025), where bubble wrap and cigarette packaging are delicately arranged, or Grounded(2024), which suspends prints of historical maps in document bags on barbed wire, Zhang elevates the overlooked into something contemplative. His works resist the permanence often demanded of art, embracing instead the transient nature of their components. A crease in plastic may soften, a sheet may curl under shifting air pressure—this is not a flaw but a deliberate embrace of flux, inviting viewers to engage with the work as a living, breathing entity.
Backroom, bündel, 2025 install shot.
What sets Zhang apart is his collaborative approach to material. Rather than imposing form, he allows the inherent properties of his chosen mediums to guide the work’s evolution. In Backroom, leben (2024), machine fish encased in plastic bags evoke a fragile ecosystem, while Backroom, gepäckschebekarren (2024) uses a balloon animated by a fan to create a sense of weightless drift. These installations, described as “barely there, yet insistently present,” blur the boundaries between object and environment, interior and exterior. The frosted surfaces of his plastics obscure as much as they reveal, creating a visual language that is both elusive and intimate. This subtlety is a hallmark of Zhang’s practice, which refuses to dominate space but instead dissolves into it, activated by light, time, and the viewer’s presence.
Backroom, fuBball, 2025 install shot.
Zhang’s exhibition ROTOR (2024) at the Louvre, demonstrate his ability to adapt his delicate interventions to diverse contexts. His installations respond not just to physical spaces but to emotional and atmospheric conditions, encouraging viewers to slow down and engage with ambiguity. In Double Rice (2023), where rice grains are meticulously cut with nail clippers, or Insomnia (2021), with its machine bugs and sand in a plastic bed, Zhang crafts microcosms that demand close attention. These works are not didactic; they resist overt symbolism, instead inviting an encounter that feels personal and unmediated. This quiet resistance to spectacle aligns Zhang with a lineage of artists who prioritize process over product, yet his work feels distinctly contemporary in its engagement with post-industrial detritus.
Backroom, hof, 2024 install shot.
The title of his upcoming show, am, encapsulates the essence of Zhang’s practice: a state of suspended being, neither fully formed nor undone. This concept of “in-betweenness” is not just a formal quality but a philosophical stance. Zhang’s work challenges the commodification of art, questioning the structures of exhibition and production. His inclusion in collections like LAC in London and Atypia in Shanghai underscore his growing influence. Yet, Zhang remains committed to a practice that is “slow, quiet, and spectacle-proof.” His fragility is not weakness but a radical form of persistence, a way of existing in the world that acknowledges impermanence as generative.
Backroom, gepäckschebekarren, 2024. Balloon blown by a fan charged by lost shared power bank floating on air; canvas frames, and yellow sponge pad on the back of a canvas on a moving board, 220×183×81 cm.
Zhang’s interdisciplinary curiosity, evidenced by his publication on music classification using neural networks (2024), suggests a mind that transcends traditional artistic boundaries, weaving scientific precision into his poetic explorations. This duality enriches his practice, grounding his ethereal installations in a rigorous conceptual framework. His work, translucent and trembling, invites us to linger in the liminal, to find beauty in hesitation, and to embrace the fleeting as a form of presence. Jichi Zhang is not just an artist to watch but one to experience, slowly and deliberately, in all his quiet brilliance.
Narcissistic Variant, 2024 install shot
