ALEXANDER OCHS GALLERIES BERLIN | BEIJING

"Poetry in itself knows of nothing beyond things; for it, everything is serious and unique and incomparable" (Georg Lukács, "Soul and Form", 1911). It applies the same to the painting of Zhang Hui. She picturesquely traces that same triad of things in her work. It is the disappearance of things that she refutes in her paintings. Be it an old broom made from chicken feathers, an open wagon, a table top or a kettle: in Zhang Hui’s paintings, they are equally worthy of depiction.

The images oscillate between revealing and concealing concreteness.  Zhang Hui avoids the intention of artfully assigning to the abstract or the representational subject – and moves nimbly between both genres.

Zhang Hui understands the finite nature of things, places and moments beyond images. In her constructed image space, she gives them their own shimmering, serious and incomparable mystery. (Tobias Bock, Art Critic)