JIANG ZHONGLI

Although essentially a classical artist, Jiang Zhongli’s portraits are anything but simple representations of reality. Instead his figures exist in a distant reality, somewhere between the real and imagined. There is nothing else in this reality except the characters themselves; it could be memory, invention or dream. Jiang Zhongli chooses ordinary Chinese people as his subjects: These are people that one might pass on the street everyday and yet not notice. Using earth tones and an impasto style, Jiang sculpts his characters from the canvass, endowing them with the heroic qualities of classical sculpture.  Drawing influences from both Chinese and Western artistic traditions, Jiang Zhongli’s paintings are subtly disorientating and explore the psyche that exists in the no man’s land between tradition and modernization.