Twenty years on, when we look back at this youthful collection, the melancholic female figures that once dominated the artist’s work have vanished without a trace. Through a kind of “violence turned inward,” Zhang has consciously and meticulously removed emotion from her artistic expression, further emphasizing the restrained and rational aspects of her visual language. The artist has experimented with process through works such as the Syringe series (2008-2010) where she used medical gauze to allude to the pain of cutting into flesh, or the Fragments of Landscape series (2011) where she created wound-like marks by biscuit firing3 pieces of gauze and mud sprinkled with fine strands of hair. Eventually, Zhang’s experimentation led her to an ideal symbol—the cactus.
Initially, the cactus was an ordinary piece of decor in the young artist’s new off-campus living space. She had experimented with using gauze to create small cactus-shaped sculptures, but the plant was nothing more than an interesting visual element. However, the cactus soon triggered an emotional resonance in the artist. Always maintaining a cautious distance from its surroundings, the plant possessed contrasting qualities of sharpness and softness, creating wounds with its spines but healing with its sap. Within the dizzyingly cramped confines of urban spaces, the cactus grows slowly and silently, outlining the vibrant yet constrained profile of a young artist standing at the threshold of her career. As Zhang expressed in the artist statements of her early works, “the cactus alludes to my experience of marginalization in this city. Baptized by industrialization, its form and structure have a stiff and clumsy beauty, which I endlessly attempt to magnify and refine through my work.”4
For the time being, a cactus-shaped sculpture was not yet attainable in a three-dimensional space, so Zhang transferred the concept to a two-dimensional plane. With pencil, she sketched cacti of various species and forms on deconstructed packaging boxes, standard graphing paper or gifted Indian fiber paper that had existing or hand-drawn grid-based backgrounds. During this phase, which saw series such as Greenhouse (2011) and Secret Room (2012), Zhang’s cactus images were more realistic and complete compared to later works. They resembled scientific specimens pressed into painting, and the artist only made slight geometric cross-sectional abstractions using the grid coordinate system. During that period, Zhang was also experimenting with concrete, and the charcoal gray color of the pencils used to draw the cacti also resonated with that medium.
In one of Zhang’s favorite songs, Things I Don’t Understand (1984), the lyricist, composer, and singer Luo Dayou sings with a slightly weathered voice, “Take a pencil and draw the truth/What kind of word is that?/Some things I don’t understand.” At that time, the artist herself did not yet understand the crucial role that the medium of concrete would play in her art.
Besides the cactus, which symbolizes the coexistence of soft and hard, Zhang continued to explore through her work another visually modern structure — the grid. In Rosalind Krauss’s seminal essay “Grids” which spans ancient and contemporary times, the Krauss says, “the grid’s mythic power is that it makes us able to think we are dealing with materialism (or sometimes science or logic) while at the same time it provides us with a release into belief (or illusion, or fiction).”6 Zhang’s use of the grid in both two-dimensional and spatial contexts highlights is power as something both real and illusory, both solemn and humorous.
The grids that background her works on paper serve as a prelude to the tiled spaces that are so emblematic of Zhang’s later work. By intentionally adopting a framing structure with a sense of depth, the artist experiments with creating a staged scene7, further reinforcing the viewer’s imagined sense of space. When examining these meticulous, box-like paintings, the gaze wanders along the ubiquitous grid lines, and one is reminded of the film Playtime (1967)8 and its modern metropolis constructed from countless glass windows and doors, office partitions, and tiled ceilings, where everything appears transparent and organized, yet reality is often deceptive and estranged — seemingly attainable, but just out of reach. As an artist born in Shanghai and nurtured by the megalopolis, Zhang must be intimately aware of the interplay between control and chaos in this city.
Building on her experimentation with space, Zhang also began to explore color. Over time, her use of color transitioned from the low-purity red or blue of graphing paper to more vibrant, highly saturated, even fluorescent hues. Using watercolor pens, Zhang wove overlapping ribbons of color in horizontal and vertical lines across the page. Within a single work, there may be tens of thousands of monotonous yet perilous lines. Monotonous is the apt word here, because the act of creating each line is mechanically tedious and repetitive, with a process akin to working in an assembly line. Yet, perilous is also an accurate descriptor, because the artist pursues perfection through the intersection of lines. Here, a fraction of a millimeter is all that stands between right and wrong.
If one takes a magnifying glass to the details, the subtle variations inherent in hand-drawn work become apparent. The artist employs a technique where lines are not shaped by direct outline, instead, they are shaped using the endpoints of strokes created during the lining process. Although the drafting process is meticulous to the point of being mechanical, these deviations manifest in the form of mottled nodes formed by ink leaking from the pen tip, delicate stain-like blurring, or fuzzy, uneven line endings that resemble cut fabric edges. The fine line endings found in the background of Zhang’s work inherit the momentum of the painting process, applying a subtle, gentle pressure on the work’s main subject, while creating visual effects of mutual contamination and permeation.
This obsession with detail is also reflected in Zhang’s sculptural installation, where colorful rubber-coated segments of electrical wire peek out from cement, cactus spines poke through transparent film, and metal wires are handwoven into delicate nets. Effectively counterbalancing the solid rigidity of her sculpture, these details reveal a subtle playfulness and vitality that may go unnoticed at first glance.
If we return to Zhang’s painting around this time, the cactus has taken center stage, and the artist continues to iterate on the subject, which has become more fragmented, fossilized, and difficult to identify. Meanwhile, the wooden sticks used by horticulturalists to support cactus plants are gradually becoming dominant visual elements. For example, the focal point of Edges (2016) is two slender wooden sticks interconnecting and unfolding at obtuse angles, while the cactus is perched on one of the sticks, like a bit of proliferating tissue. In Zhang’s Object 2015 series, wooden sticks and geometric frames come together to shape a semi-transparent space at the center of each composition, as if the artist has constructed a greenhouse to shelter the cluster of cactus at its core.
Years later, at Zhang’s solo exhibition “Zhang Ruyi: Speaking Softly” (2023) at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, visitors would see the impressive large-scale site-specific installation, The Desert Is Not Sad, Nor Is it Deserted (2022), where the artist evokes a greenhouse structure from a stainless-steel skeleton and transparent plastic film, which houses several concrete cactus sculptures. As the Chinese saying goes, there are many “snakes hidden by the grass, and lines drawn from dust” embedded in the evolution of Zhang’s work; these subtle patterns may not be immediately apparent, but extend across the years of her artistic practice. For example, plastic film, which first began to appear nearly a decade ago, has become one of the key materials in Zhang’s latest exhibitions.
The artist’s 2016 solo exhibition, “Building Opposite Building,” signified a coming of age for Zhang’s sculptural language, which realized the spatial imaginings she had been cultivating on paper or canvas over the years. Representational objects, cacti and sticks alike, escaped into three-dimensional space, creating room for the artist to find new facets in her two-dimensional work.
The early work, No Light Here-2 (2016) which was exhibited in “Building Opposite Building,” is representative of this phase. Layering blue acrylic on a wooden board, Zhang added a grid of overlapping lines in colored pencil, which proved especially forceful on the solid board. Finally, she cut small circular dots out of colored filter paper, and attached them to the piece, creating a purely abstract pattern. The dots are the coordinates of this network, anchoring the viewer’s gaze. Because the red and green dots overlap, the complementary colors create a neon flicker. Zhang had begun to play a purely abstract visual game this series of pieces on wooden board. “The act of drawing these overlapping lines through the momentum of my body felt like a self-contained dialogue within myself,” Zhang said.
Over the next two years, Zhang experimented with applying silk screen to her paintings in “Weaving,” “Order: Obedience or Limitation,” and “Crystal Night” series. When layered on top of the painting, the precise and rigid silk screen gridlines introduce order to the slightly relaxed rhythm of hand drawn lines, much like the omnipresent rules and restrictions of society. When viewing these pieces, illusory visual effects add an unexpected element of interest. The patterns seen in this phase of Zhang’s artistic journey also integrate with her sculptural language, and can be seen in the structure trailing behind the cement cactus in Mountain-4 (2017) and the background of ready-made electrical wires in Other (2017). In both works, Zhang draws gridlines directly onto wooden boards and showcases the textures of the materials themselves. Lines on raw wooden boards evoke an aesthetic that is unique to construction sites.
[Caption for Crystal Night imageZhang uses silk screen printing to cover the canvas, except for its four sides and the dots, in transparent ink. By creating negative space, the artist highlights the texture of the dots and the canvas edges. The work’s title may elicit images of a vast night sky, interspersed with stars, or perhaps a sight more common to urban nightscapes – bright windows on high rises.]
These works naturally evoke Agnes Martin’s iconic grid paintings of the 1960s. In a 1971 Artforum essay, Kasha LinVille theorizes that, “Line is where [Martin] speaks most personally. It is her vocabulary as the grids are her syntax.”9 Through such vocabulary and syntax, Martin evokes resonance with the viewer’s memories, memories of nature and pure, emotional experiences. Similarly, Zhang Ruyi uses her own lines and grids to construct narratives based on impressions of urban life.
In summer 2017, left the city briefly for an artist residency at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Scotland. She found an exquisite old picture frame at a local flea market, which had a coarse, brown compacted fiberboard backing. Borrowing the same drawing technique she had used previously on wooden boards, Zhang drew lines on the fiberboard, and added pieces of smooth yellow paper and small dots on top of it. Thus, the artist quietly embarked on her subsequent experiments with collage. In this unfamiliar environment, she began to experiment with new materials, using readily available items such as aluminum foil, mesh nets used for holding fruit, and sandpaper to create exquisite miniature collages. To her surprise, the artist discovered that she could create a grid-like pattern of creases by folding and unfolding aluminum foil; this represented a breakthrough from old methods of employing grids through graphing paper or drawing.
Subsequently, the artist began to create collages with a wide range of material such as aluminum foil, rubber, copper wire, filter paper, recycled synthetic fiber pads, meticulously arranging and layering these materials on wooden boards, and pressing them beneath glass. This collage approach enabled the artist to break free from the constraints of size and display found in her previous two-dimensional works, but the exquisite equilibrium of points, lines, and surfaces that Zhang is able to achieve remains undiluted in this method. The cactus, which had disappeared from her paintings, made a reappearance during this period — in the form of subtly emerging patterns UV printed on paper, or as real cactus spines, becoming one of the ready-made components of her collages. Through the materials and aesthetic of Zhang’s collage works of this period, viewers also catch a glimpse of the artist’s “Renovation” series, which commenced in 2017. These works could even be considered a snapshot of Zhang’s spatial creations.
In her latest 2023 solo exhibition, “Once Remain, Once Remould,” the artist creates new perspectives once again. The new work, Dilapidated Gently Sloping (2023), introduces the use of mosaic inlay to represent a cactus. The subtle sheen of mosaic inlay panels are juxtaposed against the heaviness of anti-slip steel plates on steps covered in white ceramic tiles. The two elements confront each other, one delicate, the other coarse, while their patterns, colors, and textures create contrasts that contribute to the snapshot of urbanity. The use of mosaic is referential. It is a technique that was born thousands of years ago, yet it has an essential place in Chinese urban spatial memory through its widespread employment as a decorative technique in Chinese architecture and homes of the 1970s and 1980s. During that time period, the popularity of mosaic inlay was also influenced by the large-scale mosaic murals of the Soviet era. In contrast, the use of anti-slip steel plates is more understated, as the bottommost layer of support for the weight of a city, the plates only emit an occasional, muffled sound when subjected to pressure.
The walls, floors, and central supporting column of the circular exhibition space have been covered in plastic film and are connected with brownish yellow duct tape. Here, we are witnessing a further expansion of the artist’s collage technique. Using the space as her foundation, Zhang creates the first layer of collage with plastic film and duct tape, while the sculptures form the work’s outermost ready-made components. With a complete shift of perspective, Zhang surrounds viewers with her work. Perhaps, ever since her graduation piece, “A Faint Hope” (2006-2007) Zhang has never truly separated two- and three-dimensional works, and her two-dimensional works have always been a snapshot of the three-dimensional. Over time, her work has changed and evolved, yet they remain authentic and steadfast, like the rings of a tree.
1 Standard graphing paper is a type of specialized paper used for mathematics and geometry calculations. Its grid layout makes it suitable for making mathematical calculations and drawing graphs. It is widely used in engineering, architecture, and design.
2 Accordion binding, also known as Fanjia binding, is a bookbinding method that was popular in East Asia during the Tang and Song Dynasties. It was commonly used to bind Buddhist scriptures, and its folded structure resembles an accordion for easy folding, unfolding, and storage.
3 Biscuit firing is the process of firing unglazed greenware at specific temperatures to give porcelain mechanical strength and integrity.
4 From Zhang Ruyi’s artist statement for her entry to the John Moores Painting Prize (China), 2012
5 “Things I Don’t Understand" was also the title of Zhang Ruyi's September 2011 independent project in Shanghai.
6 Krauss, Rosalind. “Grids.” October 9 (1979): 54
7 Ding Yi, “Geometry of Nature”, 2013
8 Playtime is a comedic film written by, directed by, and starring famed French director, Jacques Tati. The film features an expansive cityscape and follows the protagonist's awkward journey through modern urban life.
9 Linville, Kasha. “Agnes Martin: An Appreciation.” ARTFORUM (Summer, 1971)
