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.
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ARTIST STATEMENT
“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.”
METHOD OF WORKING
“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.”