Johanna Zhang NEAC
Artworks
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Statement
Johanna Zhang NEAC collects figures in the streets in home-made sketchbooks. Her works have an affinity with traditional Chinese narrative paintings that tend to depict interstitial spaces.
Narrative initiates a way of composing pictorial space rather than provide a literary content. It is a kite that sooner or later breaks away from the thread. When that happens, the painting renounces its origin and becomes at ease with its own alienation.
Methodology
I saw a film by Robert Bresson: 'A Man Escaped'. In the film, a prisoner of war turns a spoon into a mini spade, a quilt into several ropes reinforced with the wires pulled out of the window frame. With these essential tools and the help of a fellow inmate, the prisoner finally breaks free. In a sense, I draw for the same purpose: to obtain a kind of freedom through my own developed faculties.
Drawing thus underpins my work. I collect figures in the streets in home-made sketchbooks. I make puppets in the studio to re-enact various relations. My works have an affinity with traditional Chinese narrative paintings that tend to depict interstitial spaces. I also admire Sienese painting for its revelation of intimate relationship between architecture and human activities.