The gallery is delighted to present its second solo exhibition of Brooklyn-based artist Ping Zheng. The exhibition includes new works on paper made in oil stick, grounded in the artist's ongoing exploration of nature, color, and form.
Zheng's new works approach color with an embrace of light. Sunshine and moonlight appear in different guises- as a sunflower in full bloom, as steep mountainside, or as the outline of a pine tree's layered needles. At times light suggests an opening or entryway onto a new space. Naturally occurring elements, rendered in a geometric style, give way to the artist's experimental use of oil stick, which she works into rich textures and lines. Planes of layered color are punctuated by tiny speckles, reminiscent of stars. Flat, rectangular strokes of color appear as impressionist brush marks, zig-zags, and repeated dotted lines.
For Zheng, depicting nature brings joyous memories of feeling free in the outdoors. As told to writer Matt Witt,
"My inspiration is grounded in childhood memories of natural landscapes, where I felt free as a human in the outdoors, avoiding family pressures as being a girl at home... Art is about how you view the world and I always want to be creative with my artwork and genuine with my paradoxical thoughts, which is about the past and present in my life. I like spending a lot of time on processing and communicating with my artwork. I think this is how the subconscious mind brings me a particular focus on creativity, approaching art as a mean of personal development. My passionate belief in equality, males and females are just part of this universe."
Ping Zheng was born in 1989 in Zhejiang, China and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been exhibited at Kristen Lorello, New York, Chinese American Arts Council/Gallery 456, New York, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, the Asian Students and Young Artists Festival, Seoul South Korea, and Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, New York. She received a BA from the University College of London, Slade School of Fine Art in 2014 and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016.
