Zhang Yunyao – Study for Figures, 2022

Blaise Adilon

Venue

Guimet Museum

Lyon

Born 1985 in Shanghai, China.
Lives and works in Paris, France.

Using non-traditional media such as felt, Zhang Yunyao explores the multiple possibilities of painting; indeed, he is helping to renew the potential of this material. During a slow and painstaking process, the artist strives to produce a textured surface with considerable tonal variation. Taking as his subjects classical and mythological scenes immortalised by the master sculptors and painters of Antiquity, he makes monumental paintings that depict grappling male bodies. His overlaying of images, creating the illusion of double exposure photography, contributes to the rich materiality of his painting and to the creation of new bearings, in a temporality that bridges the ancient and contemporary worlds.

Also on view at the Gadagne Museum and in The many lives and deaths of Louise Brunet at the macLYON.