Xi Zhang

Xi Zhang’s paintings manifest the psychological weight experienced in moments of turmoil and tribulations. In his oneiric narratives, melancholia is a familiar companion – overbearing landscapes and foreboding atmospheres suppress his lonely protagonists, obscuring the delineation of fantasy and reality. Conflating the styles of the East and the West, Zhang’s luscious brushstrokes recall water-colored mountains of antique Chinese scrolls, but also the staining of the Abstract Expressionists such as Helen Frankenthaler. It is upon Zhang’s cathartic vistas that such polarities congeal.

Born in 1984 in Kaifeng, China, Xi Zhang studied painting at Beijing Institute of Art and Design. In the early 2000s, he moved to the United States to continue his studies at the Colorado’s Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting in 2008 and was recognized by the Denver Post as the “Emerging Artist of the Year”. Zhang received his MFA in painting from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2011. The same year he was named one of the “12 Best Colorado Artists Under 35” as well as one of seven “Pathfinders” in the arts. In May 2020, Zhang was awarded the SeeMe Grand Prize in Painting by a panel of judges including Jerry Saltz and Christine Kuan for Art Saves Humanity.

Zhang’s work was most recently included in exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake, UT (2023); the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (2023); Hua Yuan Murray Hill Art Museum, Shen Zhen, Guang Dong, China (2023); and the Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT (2020). Earlier exhibitions include the Shang Hai Art Museum, Shang Hai, China (2016); Biennial of the Americas, Denver Art Museum (2013); URRA, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2012); University of Colorado Art Museum, Boulder, CO (2011); Song Zhuang Art Museum in Beijing (2006). His work was featured on media as CNN (2011); PBS (2013); NPR (2013), and Juxtapoz Magazine (2014). Selected awards include the Emerging Artist of Year (2008); The Pathmaker (2011); Top twelve artists under age 35 (2012); The Catherine Doctorow Prize in Contemporary painting (nominated 2015); The John Moores Painting Prize (China, finalist 2016); and Gold Award Winner in painting from Art Forward Contest (2016). His work has been acquired by some of the most prominent contemporary collectors and curators in the US and in Europe.