HONG KONG.- Sotheby’s Hong Kong Gallery and S|2 present Zheng Chongbin: Structures, a selling exhibition from 22 April to 3 May 2016 in Hong Kong. The exhibition showcases 35 works that synthesise the intersections of the Chinese ink tradition and Western abstract painting by Chinese-American contemporary artist Zheng Chongbin, who lives and works in Shanghai and San Francisco. Zheng’s interest in pushing the limits of ink as a medium also includes experimentation with installation and video art. The Structures exhibition is conceived in three categories - Reflection, Structured Surface, and Geometry, each representing a different aspect of Zheng’s exploration in ink. Important works are featured, including a carefully curated selection of the artist’s latest paintings alongside the Hong Kong debut of his environmental video installation Chimeric Landscape (2014-2015).

Katherine Don, Head of Contemporary Ink, Sotheby’s Hong Kong, says, “Zheng Chongbin maintains a fiercely independent approach to pushing the boundaries of the ink medium. The unconventionally sculpted surfaces of his paintings and thoughtfully presented manner of installation with light and space require one to experience his works in person and not just view them in two dimensions. His paintings are visually abstract and monochromatic, using varying combinations of ink and acrylic on xuan paper. Inspired by the Land Art and Light and Space movements of the 1970s, Zheng is able to engage viewers in the traditional way that Chinese paintings are meant to be appreciated as landscapes of the mind.”

Clare Cosman, Gallery Director, Sotheby’s Hong Kong Gallery, says, “Zheng Chongbin’s approach to creating art is truly contemporary and expands the ink medium in an exhilarating new direction. This exhibition of his new work includes a video installation as ink art, which presents a new perspective on viewing natural land formations, organic and manmade materials and ink altogether as a study on the movement of matter. This unique approach to art is very much in line with the Hong Kong Gallery’s aim to showcase a diverse breadth of innovative contemporary and modern art from around the world.”

Trained in both China and the United States, Zheng Chongbin’s distinctive, boundary-pushing practice joins classical Eastern thought and contemporary Western theories through tools and forms from both worlds, whether evoking the Daoist qi in acrylic with a Western-style brush, or biomorphic abstractions in traditional ink. With his original interactions of ink, acrylic, paper and light, he considers the materiality, structure and gesture of each artwork over the course of his three-decade-long career, illuminating the nature of perception and its connection to the world around us.

Born in Shanghai in 1961, Zheng Chongbin began his formal training in 1977 at the Culture Palace of Shanghai, and later studied with the artists Mu Yilin and Chen Jialing. He graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1984 and taught painting there until 1988 when he moved to the United States. In 1991, he received a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Academy of Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute.

Zheng’s works have been published and exhibited by prominent institutions worldwide including the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Shanghai Art Museum, University of Alberta Museum, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Pacific Asia Art Museum, Busan Museum of Modern Art, China National Art Institute, and the National Art Museum of China. His works are included in the public collections of The British Museum (UK), San Francisco Asian Art Museum (US), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (US), Daimler Art Collection (Germany), Marina Bay Sands (Singapore), and M+ Museum (Hong Kong).