Fine Art by Jamie Zhang

A Profile of the Artist

Jamie Zhang is poised to bring Chinese painting into the new millennium. 

Jamie Zhang or Zhang Hui (pronounced "Jhang") is descended from a line of artists from Anhui, home of the four treasures of the study: paper, ink, ink stone and brush.  A line of artists that was destined to be cut off by China's Cultural Revolution.  She has betrayed destiny thanks to the persistence and sacrifice of her parents who guided her early training as an artist. 

Jamie's uncle painting a picture of her when she  is about 15 years old.    He was then a professor at Beijing Central Academy of Fine Art.

Her given name, "Hui" means "painting."  Zhang Hui, or Jamie Zhang, was groomed to pursue European-style oil painting.  This is the overwhelming trend in Chinese Academia.  But while studying in Beijing she began to investigate Chan (Zen) and Tao.  It was then that she realized her passion was not Western oil painting, but Chinese water-based painting.

Jamie chooses to use traditional Chinese materials (paints, paper, silk, brushes etc.) and techniques.  Furthermore, she has an understanding of the spiritual and philosophical background of Chinese art which informs her sensibilities.  Nevertheless, one shouldn't look  for bamboo, rocks, mountains, or pine trees in her paintings.

While Jamie respects her roots, but she refuses to let herself become locked into a set of traditional tropes in  "Chinese Painting."

Her work reminds one of Klimt, Modigliani and other Europeans who fell under the influence of Asian art.  She herself hadn't thought to compare her work to theirs.   I had to remind myself that Matisse, Klimt and many other Europeans had fallen under the spell of Asian art.  It is Jamie who is simply "doing her thing" and in the process contributing to a vibrant new era in Chinese painting. 

It's well beyond the scope of this brief introduction but we can note some characteristics Jamie shares with the "Orientalized" Europeans: the flattening of perspective, the use of lines to break the flattened plane, (Oriental) decorative motifs (often taken from fabrics), Eastern color schemes and a taste for female subjects.  

While contemporary art, East and West, is dominated by self-consciously modern art, Jamie's art is a refreshingly oriented towards capturing the beauty of her human subjects, the natural world, and cultural expressions.

 

A painting of Jamie in 1990 by her father.  Oil on canvas.