Ping Zheng "Infinity"

Zheng's paintings on paper are energetic celebrations of her lifelong feelings of freedom and wonder in the vast openness of the natural landscape.  She communicates these emotions through bold colors, biomorphic forms, and spiraling patterns that recall memories of water, the idea of floating and timelessness, and the idea of nature as a home.

Zheng uses a flexible structure of a triangle capped by a circular form of color to organize her compositions. The shapes appear to expand and compress as they animate elements of earth, shelter, and sky. Radiant orbs depict full moons, lunar eclipses, suns beaming with rays of light, and fireworks exploding over an open field of grass. Mountain peaks, rivers winding into the distance, camping tents, and the sun's shimmering reflection onto water unfold in the shape of pyramids and triangles. For the artist, repeating the shape of the triangle in different guises provides her different paths for understanding her own consciousness and awareness. The shape is a portal that opens onto new dimensions as well as a stand-in for female anatomy, feelings of self-acceptance, and the freedom to think on her own and make art that feels true to herself.

While studying at RISD in 2015, Zheng first began to use oil sticks to paint her works.  It was a technical breakthrough that relieved her from using a brush to apply paint to the surface.  She was excited by the results as well as the encouragement of her peers.  Zheng has since continued to use this medium, working upright, and touching color directly onto paper with crayon-like bars of paint:

“Making art without paintbrushes, I feel I'm being really myself.  I feel free to get away from my past when art teachers told me how to be right to hold the pen and make a picture.  Now when I touch the paper surfaces with my fingers, I feel my soul connects to my mind, the 'texture' and 'marks' of pictures I create is the process of making, since I try to be close with my feelings and imagination.  It's the result of repeating marks so many times on the surface. After all, if I want to be inventive, original, and strengthen my own visual language, a time consuming process helps me to gain new textures and marks by surprise.”