April 11, 2025 (Palo Alto, CA) - Qualia Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the gallery’s first solo exhibition of internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Zhang Yu following his inclusion in the 2022 group exhibition Beyond Ink. Zhang is known for pushing the boundaries of ink, using the medium for experimental processes that bridge abstraction, durational performance, and embodied practice. Distinguishing his explorations in ink from the genre of “ink painting,” the artist has pursued a new form of conceptual ink art over the course of his fifty-year artistic journey, establishing himself as a revolutionary and disrupter of the medium. Zhang Yu: Ink Reconstructed will be open to the public from May 3, 2025, to June 21, 2025, with an opening celebration hosted on Saturday, May 3, from 4:30-6:30 PM PST, with the artist in attendance. For more information, please visit www.qualiagallery.com.The works exhibited in Zhang Yu: Ink Reconstructed are primarily two-dimensional pieces drawn from three series: a series of minimalist, abstract ink paintings from the mid-1980s, the experimental ink “Divine Light” series from the 1990s, and the early-21st-century ongoing “Fingerprints” series based on the process of fingerprint actions. Despite their wide range, they all share common materials – Xuan paper and the medium of ink.

The 20th‑century “abstract ink paintings” and the non-figurative “Divine Light” works were executed with the brush, serving as both a deconstruction and reconstruction of the traditional technical conventions of ink painting. This approach not only refutes and transcends the conventional language norms of traditional Chinese ink painting but also poses a distinction from and a question to Western abstract painting.

In contrast, the 21st‑century “Fingerprints” works set out to break free from both Eastern and Western painting traditions, rejecting pictorialism, abstract art, and the constraints of formalism. With the fundamental motive of process-based artistic expression derived from fingerprint actions, they counter the results that pursue form merely for its own sake, thereby establishing an artistic philosophy in which the fingerprint stands for action, method, expression, and concept.

Contextualizing the mark as both signifier and signified, the fingerprint has long served as a stand-in for a legally binding signature for people who were unable to write. As no two fingerprints are alike, the symbol is a complete expression of one’s individuality, as well as apermanent record of one’s agency and intention in taking its impression. Both document and testament, the fingerprint’s multifaceted meaning resonates in the thousands of impressions in Zhang’s series.

Zhang interrogates and deconstructs the canon, creating a new methodology of art making that recognizes and engages with art history but remains wholly his own. From the start of his career as an artist, he has pursued both figurative and abstract art simultaneously. After exploring meticulous figure painting, freehand brush painting, surrealism, and expressionism, he eventually realized that, in the wake of Pop Art, figurative painting was unlikely to yield new methods. Thus, Zhang abandoned the pursuit of figurative painting after the 1990s.

The contemporary direction of Zhang’s work stems from his research into the development of art in both Eastern and Western art history. From the late 20th century to the early 21st century, the artist advanced experimental ink techniques and proposed ideas such as “ink is not equal to ink painting,” “beyond East and West,” and “awareness art.” By transforming the ink-brush system through the embodied, experiential process of fingerprint actions, Zhang ultimately ended the notion that ink culture and the ink medium belong to a single type of painting—earning him the reputation as “the terminator of ink painting.” This was not a mere change of the rules of the game, but rather the ultimate spiritual inquiry of an artist’s lifelong journey.

Qualia Contemporary Art is proud to present a survey of Zhang Yu’s visionary, decades-long practice, continuing the gallery’s commitment to introducing new and experimental works of historical and cultural significance to Silicon Valley audiences and beyond. This presentation marks a rare opportunity to view works from the Divine Light series, which Zhang no longer consigns to North American galleries. As part of the exhibition’s special programming, Zhang will perform his piece “Dian Tao” (“Dot Moss”) (first conceptualized in 2005) at the gallery during the opening reception, a work in which the fingerprint action is presented using river stones—showing that the fingerprint technique ultimately moves toward nature and transcends into earth art. Through this serialized process, the work transcends traditional sculpture by embodying the principle of “neither carving, nor molding, neither adding nor subtracting.”

About Zhang Yu 张羽

(b. 1959 in Tianjin, China)

Zhang Yu graduated from the Tianjin Academy of Arts and Crafts in 1988. Throughout his artistic career, he has been engaged with the language of art and experimental ink painting, contributing to and reforming the discursive boundaries of ink art.

His early series, Divine Light, became internationally recognized when they were included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, Ink Art: Past As Present in Contemporary China, in 2013. The artist is also well known for his Fingerprint and installation works, which have been exhibited in major exhibitions in China, Taiwan, Europe and America.

His recent solo exhibitions include LACMA (LA County Museum of Art); HOW Art Museum, Shanghai; Yuan Art Museum, Beijing; Art Centre of Providence University, Taichung; Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong; Beijing; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; and more. His works have been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong; Benetton Museum, Venice, Italy; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; and Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, USA.