With their eyes sunk into an inky blackness that match¬es their suits and ties, the figures of mainland Chinese artist Zhang Tongshuai resemble men half eaten by their own shadows. The details are noticeable by their absence but the subjects find a voice with gleaming sets of teeth and oversized hands.

　　“The facial features of my subjects may be incomplete,” said Zhang whose eyeless creations appear in wood¬block prints and sculptures, “but they can still commu¬nicate with open mouths and hand gestures.”

　　This shadowy world asks viewers to fill in details that often decide identity. Like figuring out who’s who in faded photographs, we are left scrambling for words, descriptions, and names. But as we make out the pic¬ture, we might emphasise certain features and ignore others. Zhang’s exclusion of these fine details echoes the discriminating eye of the modern world.

　　“People notice clothes more than faces,” said Zhang. “Suits and ties are like military uniforms. They help people slot into certain situations and have become ways for them to find an entity, sometimes dangerously. Our identities are dissolving into a system decided by fashion, business and societal codes, and these have become more important than the people who make up the system, and who have become lost in shadows.”

　　Zhang, who graduated from the Xian Academy of Fine Arts in 2005, entered a vibrant art world at a time when the nation’s artists were reaching international stardom. Caught between traditional Chinese art, and the flam¬boyant caricatures of the groundbreaking Pop Cynical Realists, Zhang could draw on a changing China with new issues to make an interesting aesthetic and body of work.

　　Born in 1981, Zhang grew up in post-Cultural Revolu¬tion China where corporate black suits emerged along¬side the khaki and blue outfits of communist cadres.

　　The ironic mix that built China’s economic miracle is caught in woodblock prints such as ‘Welcome’ which shows black-suited men displaying a uniform solidar¬ity redolent of the Socialist realist artists who painted propaganda images in the Mao era.

　　The big mouths on these faceless figures could sym¬bolize anything from the extravagant boasts of China’s trailblazing entrepreneurs to the secrecy of government or the bold claims of both its international business-partners and state-owned industries. Unlike his pre¬decessors, Zhang can point a finger of blame at more than the Communist Party, But he states that his im¬ages are in fact vignettes—everyday scenes of life in modern China.

　　“I never deliberately set out to make a political or so¬cial statement,” said Zhang. ”My images are snapshots of what I see in daily life. I intend my art pieces to be a direct reflection of what society does or does not shed light on.”

　　But with quite a lot of the woodblock prints one metre by two metres, their size amplifies the underlying state¬ments. This immensity set against a contrasting sea of white helps the incisive black figures make an impact that becomes part of the statement.

　　“I think the size of an art piece is an essential part of the overall composition,” said Zhang. ”When creat¬ing an image, different sizes have different roles and psychological effects. Of course, this depends on the needs of the piece and artistic intentions but I think my images would not speak as clearly if I did not spend time making such immense woodblocks.”

　　Yet behind this contemporary aesthetic is a traditional method that sets the artwork apart from the often gar¬ish, painterly styles of contemporary China. Woodblock printing, a technique that dates back to Han dynasty China, gives the images a sharpness that makes them look like calligraphy at first. Zhang ‘s approach is re¬freshing in the way it melds the traditional into the contemporary instead of fitting it into one category or another. It may not signal a paradigm shift but Zhang revitalizes the tradition with the content’s modern visual codes.

　　“Woodblock printing is simple, direct and powerful,” said Zhang. ”It fits my creativity and what I set out to do. After a generation of artists rebelled against tra¬dition by exploring colourful new styles that looked distinct from the past, I had to find new ways of doing things. With the experimentation of a previous genera¬tion of artists laying the groundwork, using a traditional method in a modern way seemed like a way to break new ground.”

　　Beijing-based artist Zhang Tong Shuai is represented by Singapore’s Sunjin Galleries.

作者：Remo,Notarianni