Zhang Yinliang

Zhang Yinliang’s artistic practice unfolds along two parallel paths: painting and monotype. Her painterly language is deeply informed by printmaking—especially the “layered thin washes, repeated overlays, and delayed emergence” characteristic of monotype. This gradual construction produces semi-transparent, slowly revealing imagery in which memory, physical site, and psychological space overlap and collide within a single picture.
(1) A Painting Method Rooted in ‘Situatedness’
Zhang emphasizes a mode of viewing grounded in “situatedness.” During travel, urban wandering, or daily observation, she records scenes through photography and quick sketches. These materials are not translated into paintings immediately; instead, they undergo a period of sedimentation and are revisited months later. As a result, the spaces in her works are not straightforward reproductions of a moment but composite sites shaped by layered recollection—combining lived experience with emotional reconfiguration through time.
(2) ‘Distance’ Between Figures and Space
Her works often feature silhouetted groups of people. These figures lack detailed facial features or clothing, appearing only through simplified bodily gestures. For Zhang, this represents a way of “observing with distance,” avoiding fixed narrative certainty while preserving psychological space between viewer and subject.
The figures may merge with the background or be seen as part of it, reflecting fleeting, ambiguous relationships typical of urban life. This approach lends her images a floating, subtle yet resonant sense of detachment.
(3) Extensions of Space, Time, and the Psyche
Over many years, Zhang repeatedly returns to specific urban locations, forming a decade-long relationship with certain corners of the city. What she seeks to capture is not the surface appearance of the urban environment, but the “psychological space” attached to each site and the connections among people and objects within it.
As she notes in an interview:
“The space in my pictures is the result of color, memory, the physical site, and psychological experience colliding with each other.”
Thus, her paintings often present simultaneously:
• softened architectural boundaries
• light accumulated across different temporal layers
• semi-transparent recollections
• fluid, unfixed spatial structures
Together, they create a way of seeing that exists between reality and memory—at once strange and familiar.