Zhang Wei @ Galerie Max Hetzler

I visited this exhibition months ago. When Paris shut down to stop the spread of the Coronavirus, these fresh and vibrant paintings representing the first exhibition of Chinese artist, Zhang Wei were shuttered inside Galerie Max Hetzler for the remainder of the Spring. As often happens with abstract painting, the images in representation don't begin to show the complexity of what the painter is doing on the canvas, and so I lost all motivation to post this blog.

Both in their size and their often sometimes aggressive approach to the canvas, these abstract paintings are highly unusual for a Chinese artist. The application of paint is varied and contrasting even on a single canvas. The artist moves from sweeping paint across a canvas through splashing to delicate touching. The gallery blurb mentions that the works are influenced by action painting, and there is also a clear influence of the painting of Americans such as Franz Kline. However, there are also strong connections to the calligraphic mark, a trait developed from eastern traditions. It is as though east and west meet in the traces of the calligraphic made into paint. And with these different techniques come unlikely combinations of paint. Purple and orange, pink and green share space on the same canvases. It is typical for the colour that takes up most of the canvas to be applied through a huge swathe pulled across and around. In contrast, the other colour is like a visitor to the canvas, splashed on, an afterthought, something not meant to be there. Like the unusual mint green in the smaller work on paper, we are left wondering how the dashes and splashes ended up on the canvas.

There are also moments in these paintings that are filled with such enormous energy and vibrancy in these daring colours, giving the impression that the paint ended up on the canvas as the result of an explosion. The paint moves in multiple directions, often frenzied, and yet, always with purpose. In other moments, it is tipped onto the canvas, flicked on. It has an alarming sense of speed, immediacy, as though not a lot of thought has gone into it. The gallery text also likens  Zhang Wei's paint to breath; light, airy, gentle. In some paintings, I also noticed water splashing, and in other works there was something in motion that couldn't be seen by the human eye. Thus, the paintings are both real and mysterious.

There is a conversation between the different colours. A yellow in standoff with splashes of purple, the inclusion of grey into a field of yellow. The colours never sit comfortably together, although sometimes there is a sense of resignation, as though they have given up their argument and decided to sit together calmly.

The gallery blurb also says that the works are explorations of the canvas as space, and that because the colours don't cover all the space on offer, the works can be unfinished. However, to my eyes, there was nothing unfinished about Zhang Wei's paintings. Rather, the vivacious colours have been deliberately placed in their space on the canvas. The consciousness of emptiness is confirmed by the dense white layer of paint over a thick hessian canvas in those areas identified as empty. Indeed, white is everywhere in these works, as though white is the retort to any attempt to make assumptions about the consistency of colour, their relationships and their status on the canvas.