Artist’s much-anticipated solo exhibition explores the human figure
Zheng at the opening night of his solo exhibition titled Stillness Consumed.
Art collectors and aficionados were buzzing with excitement at the opening night of Yuande Zheng’s new solo exhibition titled, Stillness Consumed. It was understandably so, as it has been more than 15 years since the Malaysian-born artist and sculptor had a solo exhibition in the country.
In Stillness Consumed, Zheng’s exploration and admiration of the human figure takes on a new angle as it highlights the human figure, suspended in motion, in his own minimalist style. “Stillness Consumed cannot be explained in words. The human figure in motion is something that you have to see and feel for yourself,” said Zheng. Zheng utilises only two mediums in this particular series — charcoal drawings on paper and sculptures, using a mix of bronze and stainless steel.
“For the drawings, I created a special kind of charcoal to get the hues and shades that I needed,” he added. His drawings capture not the details of limbs and muscles, but the way in which they bend and twist in order to form creative, sometimes almost acrobatic poses. The sculptures depict many of the same lines and gestures in the same abstract, minimalist style, as seen in the lack of a torso or feet in some pieces. “I intentionally excluded certain parts of the body in some of the sculptures if I think they are not needed in order to highlight the figures formed by specific limbs. “The anatomy does not need to be complete because my work looks not at the human anatomy, but the movements and poses that the human body is capable of,” said Zheng.
