LUMINOSITY: Zhang Zhaohui

光亮——张朝晖个人作品展

Art Director 艺术总监: Peng Feng彭锋

Exhibition Dates

June 6 - July 5, 2026

Opening and Footprints Performance

3 - 5 pm, Saturday, June 6, 2026

Red Gate Gallery is proud to present Luminosity: Zhang Zhaohui Solo Exhibition, Peng Feng serving as the Art Director. The exhibition will run from June 6 to July 5, 2026. The opening and Footprints performance art, will take place from 3 pm to 5 pm on Saturday, June 6, 2026.

The distinctive feature of Zhang Zhaohui's ink paintings is the portrayal of light. This is not abstract or realistic, but rather an evocative, spiritual form of artistic expression. Whether within the cultural context of ink painting or in the context of contemporary art, these works present a unique and distinct personal artistic vision. Therefore, the theme of this exhibition is Luminosity: Art needs to shine, bringing warmth and showcasing a bright future.

Over the past four decades in the context of Chinese art, Zhang Zhaohui's artistic journey has exhibited a unique, progressive, and deepening artistic trajectory. This experience encompasses extensive involvement in various aspects of the art system, including twenty years of work in art museums, field research into folk arts, art criticism, independent curating, art historical studies, art brokerage, and international art exchanges. Over the past two decades, he has engaged in diverse artistic practices and explorations, including performance, installation, photography, and innovative and transformative experiments in ink painting, which have had a significant impact. This exhibition is his third solo show at Red Gate Gallery, showcasing a new facet of Zhang Zhaohui’s exploration of ink painting since the Pandemic.

Unlike many contemporary explorers of ink painting, he gradually integrated his rich and diverse life experiences and artistic expertise over four decades into his works. This includes his traditional calligraphy and painting practice during his childhood, his experiences living in Impiral gardens such as the Summer Palace and Xiangshan Park in Beijing during his early years, his study of ancient Chinese material culture at the Museum Studies Program of Nankai University, his extensive exposure to various art forms while working at the National Art Museum of China, his nationwide fieldwork into folk art in the early 1990s, as well as his exposure to contemporary Japanese and Korean art and minimalist, conceptual, and land art from Europe and America when he studied in New York City in his early thirties. These diverse, intensive and vibrant life experiences and artistic career gradually permeated and engulfed his artistic thoughts, inspiration, and explorations, manifesting themselves in his diverse yet continuous and genealogical works of ink art.

Zhang Zhaohui is a long-termist artist who has made significant contributions by integrating light, space, and structure into ink painting. He has developed an artistic lineage centered on light and lines, water, and ink, and has effectively transformed the essence of traditional Chinese aesthetics and brushwork expression into contemporary context and artistic vocabulary that can be shared internationally. This has gradually opened up new frontiers for contemporary ink.

About the Artist

Zhang Zhaohui, born in Beijing in 1965, graduated from Nankai University in 1988. He continued his studies at the Chinese National Academy of Arts under the supervision of Professor Shui Tianzhong and was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1995. In 1998, he earned another Master of Arts in Contemporary Art Curatorial Studies from Bard College, USA. From 2003 to 2006, he pursued his doctoral studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, tutored by Professor Pan Gongkai. He currently lives and works in New York and Beijing.

His solo exhibitions include: Luminosity, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing (2026); Light of Ink, Crossing Art, New York (2025); Rethink Ink, 456 Art Gallery, New York (2024); Aurora, Meile Art Compound, Taiwan (2023); Enchantment, Megafield Art Space, Beijing (2023); New Works, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing (2019); Run: Zhang Zhaohui Ink, Donglai Mountain Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA (2019); Light of the Century, Bennet Media Studio, New York (2018); Warp and Weft Ink Painting, Galway Art, Hangzhou (2018); Light and Illusion, ICI LABAS, Beijing (2018); Sky Light and Cloud Shadow: Zhang Zhaohui, Anji Art Space, Shanghai (2018); The Light of Heaven, Being 3 Gallery, Beijing (2015); The Threads That Connect Us: Zhang Zhaohui Ink Painting, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing (2014); Abstract Ink Painting, Tenpo Art Center, Taipei (2014); Mountains and Waters, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan (2014); Ink Light, Peninsula Hotel Beijing, Beijing (2014); Light Infinity, Design Art Space, Beijing (2013); Dao of Nature, Hakkokai Gallery, Beijing (2013); Narcissus Beyond the Myth, Being 3 Gallery, Beijing (2012); One and Mass, Light and Time Art Center, Beijing (2012); Origin of Time, 800 Art Museum, Shanghai (2011); Travel to Yellow River, Library of Nankai University, Tianjin (1988).

He has been invited to participate in numerous influential group exhibitions, international biennales and art fairs worldwide. His key participations include the Curitiba Biennale, China-Italia Biennale, Nordart, Fukuoka International Ink Painting Exhibition and Asian International Art Exhibition. Exhibition venues cover Kunstwerk Carlshütte in Germany, art spaces in Turin, Italy, Kyushu Geibunkan Art & Culture Center in Japan, contemporary art spaces in Singapore, Brussels Art Museum in Belgium, Château de Tours Art Museum in France, Palazzo Reale di Milano in Italy, Monastery of Capri in Italy, Niemeyer Museum of Art in Brazil, as well as a great many museums and galleries across China and abroad.

He has received a variety of international art grants and professional awards, including: the Asian Cultural Council (1996), the Luce Foundation Grant (1998), the Asia Link Foundation (2004), and the Silver Medal of the 1st Nanjing International Art Festival (2014).

His works are collected by Art Institute of Chicago, Denver Art Museum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Macao Museum of Art, Inside-Out Art Museum (Beijing), Deji Art Museum (Nanjing), West Lake Art Museum (Hangzhou), Asian Art Research House (Chicago), Eastover Art Center (MA, USA) and Kyushu Geibunkan Art & Culture Center (Japan).

About the Art Director

Peng Feng is Professor at the School of Arts, Peking University and a recipient of the Special Government Allowance from the State Council. He concurrently serves as Convener of the Discipline Appraisal Group for Art Studies under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Vice Chairman of the China Literary and Art Critics Association, Vice President of the International Association for Aesthetics, Vice President of the Chinese Aesthetics Society, and Deputy Director of the Theory and Curatorial Committee of the China Artists Association. He was appointed Yangtze River Distinguished Professor by the Ministry of Education in 2016, and named one of the Fifth National Outstanding Young and Middle-aged Literary and Art Workers with Both Moral Integrity and Professional Excellence in 2022.

His teaching, research and practice focus on aesthetic theory, art theory, art criticism, exhibition curation and script writing. He has published 20 monographs in total. His recent publications include: An Introduction to Art Criticism (Peking University Press, 2025), Modern Imagery Theories and Imagery Paintings (Lingnan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2025), Puzzles of Art History (Peking University Press, 2023). He has curated over 200 art exhibitions. Representative shows include Pervasion: Chinese Pavilion of the 54th Venice Biennale and Encounter the Silk Road: The 1st Xinjiang International Art Biennale of China.