16 Facts About Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang is a contemporary Chinese symbolist and surrealist painter.

Zhang Xiaogang was born to parents Qi Ailan and Zhang Xiaogang Jing in the city of Kunming in China's Yunnan province in 1958, and was the third of four brothers.

Zhang Xiaogang's parents were taken away for 3 years by the Chinese government for re-education.

In early 1976, Zhang Xiaogang was sent to work on a farm as part of the "Down to the Countryside Movement".

At the time of his collegiate education, Zhang Xiaogang's professors continued to teach styles of Revolutionary Realism as instituted by Chairman Mao.

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In 1985, Zhang Xiaogang began to emerge from the dark time in his life and joined the New Wave movement in China that saw a philosophical, artistic and intellectual explosion in Chinese culture.

Zhang Xiaogang formed the South West Art Group in 1986 including fellow artists, Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehei, and Ye Yongqing among more than 80 others.

The group moved for 'an anti-urban regionalism' and explored individual desire which according to Zhang Xiaogang had been suppressed by collectivist rationalization.

In 1988, Zhang Xiaogang was appointed as an instructor at Sichuan Academy's Education Department and married later that year.

Zhang Xiaogang pursued the expressive and surreal style until the 1980s and early 90s.

Zhang Xiaogang traveled to Germany in 1992 for 3 months gaining unprecedented perspective on his own Chinese cultural identity.

In Europe, too, Zhang Xiaogang begins to think about the Chinese face and reflects why he has brought images of people in books and magazines, not in actual surroundings.

Zhang Xiaogang picked Tiananmen Square as the first theme and painted it using expressive strong brush touch.

Zhang Xiaogang was particularly inspired by a photograph of his mother as a young attractive woman, a far cry from sickly, schizophrenic woman she had become.

The white traces on these cheeks represent their indelible woundsZhang Xiaogang said baby like a seed of evil, not of joy in his painting.

In other words, Zhang Xiaogang's painting is the medium through which we can communicate with those of the past.