Portrait of Zheng Chongbin, 2011 © Flo Peters Gallery, courtesy Flo Peters Gallery.

On May 11th, 2012 the Flo Peters Gallery will open an exhibition of contemporary Chinese artist Zheng Chongbin. In preparation for his first ever show in Europe, Zheng visited the gallery in order to get a feeling for the exhibition space. The internationally renowned artist will show thirteen of his latest abstract works.

Zheng was born in Shanghai in 1961 and studied at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou (today China Academy of Fine Arts). In 1989 he received a scholarship of the San Francisco Art Institute where he completed his studies in 1991 with a Master of Fine Arts. Due to his unique education, unusual in China at that time, his artwork combines the aesthetics of the East and the West by creating a synthesis of classical Chinese art and Western abstract painting. His huge success shows once more how traditional artistic techniques such as Asian ink drawing can be relevant to contemporary art.

The artist not only creates a „visual bridge“ between history and modernity by means of his expressive brush strokes with ink and acrylics on traditional xuan-paper and canvas. Having commuted between Shanghai and San Francisco, Zheng has also developed a very unique intercultural trademark which he calls his own. Abstract forms as well as a special mixture of ink, acrylics and wash conjure a formerly unknown depth into Zheng´s paintings and thus redefine the classic genre of ink painting.

Zheng Chongbin has had numerous solo exhibitions in the US, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai and a museum show in the Shanghai Art Museum. Moreover his work has been recognized in various group shows and publications. An exhibition of Zheng’s work at the Saatchi Gallery London opens in June 2012.

Zheng Chongbin lives and works in San Francisco and Shanghai.