Zhang Enli

Zhang Enli (born Jilin, China, 1965) is a painter based in Shanghai. He graduated from the Arts & Design Institute of Wuxi Technical University in 1989 and moved to Shanghai, where he taught at Donghua University until 2008. The transition from a rural environment to a major city forms an important background to his work.

His subjects have included containers, string, hoses, interiors and other overlooked features of daily life. Enlarging fragments and altering perspective, he loosens their connection to ordinary use. Thin washes, expressive brushwork and pencil grids give these apparently modest subjects an uncertain, sometimes remembered presence.

Zhang’s Space Paintings extend his practice onto walls and entire rooms. Their scale places viewers within the painted environment, making architecture part of the experience. More recent abstractions continue to connect marks and colour with people, places and memories. Major presentations have included A Room That Can Move at Shanghai’s Power Station of Art and exhibitions at the Long Museum. Across these forms, observation supplies a starting point for an image shaped by feeling rather than straightforward description.