CUT | OFF” is made up of two seemingly divergent series of works. One consists of realistic drawings of diminutive cacti framed by primary geometric shapes on top of a much larger grid of meticulous lines in chromatic gradation. Zhang Ruyi's use of abstract colorism and rational coolness could be seen as part of a broader tendency in painterly practices in China (with variants on the theme being offered by Dong Dawei, Li Shurui, Xie Molin, Chen Jie, among others)—a trend that looks a bit like a domestic Chinese assimilation of and fascination with post-painterly abstraction and Color Field.
The other series is made up of concrete sculptures, buttressed internally by wires and shaped into rectangular forms of various sizes that seal off the windows, doorways, and indeed one whole room. Of course, artists in China are no strangers to such spatial interventions, but this one is as much inspired by its domestic antecedents as by works of the British artist Rachel Whiteread. For Zhang, her materials not only highlight the oft-ignored structural fundaments of buildings but also (as for Whiteread) foreground negative space and absence. By blocking out the lights and sounds of the external world, she shifts focus squarely to the space, grain and texture, and heightened bodily sensation. Concrete serves as a metaphor for a stance of stubborn resistance and slowness—a metaphor that resonates with the durability of the cacti that have so entranced the artist, as well as the sheer expenditure of time and labor required to create her works.
