Zhang Xiaogang Inseparable “Bloodline” between Mother and Child, or Individuals and State Drawn in Mysterious Portrait
Name（Chinese letter）
張暁剛
Name
Zhang Xiaogang
Media
Painting
Region
China
Year of Birth
1958
Place of Birth
Kunming, China
Place of Residence
Beijing
Zhang Xiaogang spent his childhood when China underwent confusion caused by the Cultural Revolution. In the early 1990s, Zhang started working on portrait works inspired by family photographs taken during the revolutionary time (this work is one of them). The artist developed the Bloodline series through such attempts, which later became his representative work. A somewhat illusionary and nostalgic taste emerges in this series, like a family portrait taken at a photo studio. It was internationally received with high recognition as a reflection of contemporary Chinese society, where huge gaps were born between the realities faced by people of different generations and moreover, the relationship between groups and individuals in China.
Painter with Mother as a Young Woman illustrates the painter and his mother at a young age. The shadowy impression of a sepia-colored mother wearing a Mao suit and the contrasting representation of the yellow-faced artist with wide-open eyes evoke the feeling of distance, even if they are next to each other as a family. Unpleasantly looking face of the artist implies a turbulent history of his family that follows later and a deep vestige of their wound. Zhang described the nation state as “one large family.” His family portrait illustrates not only the parents and their child but also complicated consanguineous relationships between an individual and a nation state.
Zhang Xiaogang spent his childhood when China underwent confusion caused by the Cultural Revolution. In the early 1990s, Zhang started working on portrait works inspired by family photographs taken during the revolutionary time (this work is one of them). The artist developed the Bloodline series through such attempts, which later became his representative work. A somewhat illusionary and nostalgic taste emerges in this series, like a family portrait taken at a photo studio. It was internationally received with high recognition as a reflection of contemporary Chinese society, where huge gaps were born between the realities faced by people of different generations and moreover, the relationship between groups and individuals in China.
Painter with Mother as a Young Woman illustrates the painter and his mother at a young age. The shadowy impression of a sepia-colored mother wearing a Mao suit and the contrasting representation of the yellow-faced artist with wide-open eyes evoke the feeling of distance, even if they are next to each other as a family. Unpleasantly looking face of the artist implies a turbulent history of his family that follows later and a deep vestige of their wound. Zhang described the nation state as “one large family.” His family portrait illustrates not only the parents and their child but also complicated consanguineous relationships between an individual and a nation state.