Jiang Zhi - On The White

Osage Singapore is pleased to present Chinese artist Jiang Zhi's first solo exhibition in Singapore, On The White. Jiang Zhi is one of the most thought-provoking artists of his generation to have emerged from mainland China. His ruminations on the metaphysical aspects of art and life find extraordinary expression in photography, video and installation.

On The White presents a selection of works from 2006–8 where the quality of the colour white has been investigated in the works' form, content or presentation, giving structure and motif to the exhibition. In light, cloth and nature, the demolishing character, encompassing effect, and the purificatory and spiritual associations of the colour white reveal the operations of power, fate, eroticism and fantasy.

Jiang Zhi's works explore grand themes and personal narratives in surprising and unconventional ways. Connecting and juxtaposing the spiritual with the mundane, they bring out a complex poetic sensibility with no small dose of irony. His creative breakthroughs in his material choices give voice to subtle nuances and a wide range of readings of his work. In his photographic works that deal with the narration of light, the careful construction of theatrical scenarios and the emphasis on small characters and micro-fictions successfully expands individual focus and individual feeling to discourses on common social issues and even universal phenomenon. The video work The Beginning of the Universe uses fireworks to explore subjective fate and the sublime; where there is a beginning, there is also an end. The installation If By Life You Were Deceived uses dust as a symbol of man's insignificance, the passing of time and the irretrievability of ideals. In I'm your poetry No. 9 - I dedicate all my looks to you he uses silicon gel to make objects that comment on fashion, the body, freedom, fetishization and consumerism. His new series of photographs with figures enshrouded under white cloth are an introspective examination of life's encounters, entrapments, entanglements and contradictions.

Born in 1971 in Hunan, People's Republic of China, Jiang Zhi is a graduate from the China Academy of Art and is currently based in Beijing. He has exhibited widely in Europe, The United States of America, and Asia, notably in "Time Versus Fashion" (The Kunstverein Nurtingen Art Centre, Germany, 2009), "Spectacle, To Each His Own" (Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2009), "Drawn in the Clouds – Asian Contemporary Art" (Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland, 2008), Mediations Biennale 2008 (Poznan, Poland, 2008),"Reflective Asia" Nanjing Triennial Exhibition (Nanjing Museum, China, 2008, Shanghai Art Fair of International Contemporary Art Exhibition "Best Discovery Section" (Shanghai, China, 2007), We Are Your Future: Special Project of the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (Art Center Winzavod, Moscow, Russia, 2007), Chinese Whispers (Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, China, 2007), The 2nd Guangzhou Triennial of Art (Guang Dong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China, 2005), The 4th Gwangiu Biennale Exhibition (Gwangiu, South Korea, 2002), The 1st Guangzhou Triennial of Art, Guangdong Art Museum (Guangzhou, China, 2002).