A QUEST FOR HEALING
A QUEST FOR WELLNESS
2018
Edinburgh and Bath
Zhang Yanzi’s ongoing solo exhibitions entitled “A Quest for Healing” and “A Quest for Wellness” are held from April through October in Edinburgh and Bath. These two exhibitions centre around her recent artistic practice and long-term creative theory and bring about the creative integration between traditional Chinese ink and wash painting, medical science and contemporary art for the artistic community and the public in the U.K..
Her exhibitions with rich eastern philosophy and artistic features have attracted numerous journalists and a varied audience. The British media including The Guardian, The Herald, ArtAsiaPacific, New Scientist all reported on the exhibitions as soon as they were unveiled. Her solo exhibition in Bath also attracted the attention of Vera Hobhouse, an M. P. who used to be an artist and she paid a special visit and chatted with an artist.
Both of these two exhibitions by Zhang Yanzi are about “treatment” which does not only refer to medical treatment, but also indicates a communication between individuals, individuals and society, country and the spirit, and even the world. Chinese Confucianism pursues the way of “self-cultivation, regulation of home, ruling the country and pacifying the world”, this rhetoric could be applied from the individual to the country and the world. In Zhang Yanzi’s opinion, art is also a kind of “treatment”, which is also exerting its role subliminally.
