Jiao Zhenyu 焦振宇

From ArtSpeak China (ASC) Wiki

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Jiao Zhenyu (also know as Si Yu) is an painter best known for his large-scale canvasses of number series' expressed in a coolly elegant, steely gray palette. Jiao believes that numbers, whether utilized in computer code or genetic sequencing, are the essential key to our “numbering era.” He employs them as the ultimate representation of the man-made and the industrial. Born in 1968, Jiao lives and works in Shanghai.

Contents 1 Date & Place of Birth 2 Education & Development 3 Art 3.1 Meaning 3.2 Development 4 Exhibitions 5 Interviews  6 References

Date & Place of Birth

Jiao was born in 1968 in Henan, China.

Education & Development

In 1988, Jiao earned his BA from the China Institute of Applied Arts in Beijing.

Art

Jiao Zhenyu was born in 1968 in the province of Henan and the city of Luoyang, the ancient Zhou dynasty capital and site of the first Buddhist temple in China. Although he was “very interested [in] and influenced” by the traditional culture and rich archaeological heritage of Henan—it is often termed the “cradle” of Chinese civilization--he studied industrial design, a decidedly more modern discipline, at Beijing’s China Institute of Applied Art. He went on to work as a graphic designer:  first in China, then Hong Kong and, in 1996, New Zealand. While this last move inspired a turn to painting, his early landscape works were rendered in what he calls a “realist” style that bears little resemblance to the paintings for which he has become known in Shanghai, where he now lives.^[1] Jiao Zhenyu was a late bloomer, already in his mid-30s when contemporary Chinese art commanded his attention. He was originally drawn, around 2004, to Political Pop art with its social content and comment, and its up-to-date advertising- and propaganda-derived look. His mature style is instantly recognizable from its subject matter of numbers and its coolly elegant, steely gray palette. Rows of closely spaced numbers, sometimes seen in reverse as if in a mirror, form a flat, rectangular, silvery field of dark gray set against similarly colored, slightly lighter backdrops, which extend beyond the numbers as a framing device. (His vertical, rectangle-within-a-rectangle compositions are sometimes reminiscent of Mark Rothko.) As in computer graphics, the works are “spotlit,” making some numbers more brightly lit than others, or some seem to be glowing, as if backlit.^[1] 

Meaning

Jiao's work suggests the reality that numbers, whether utilized in computer code or genetic sequencing, are the essential key--the DNA--to our age, which he terms, the “numbering era.” He employs them as the ultimate representation of the man-made, the industrial and the non-natural. His medium size canvases (averaging around 4’ x 6’) typically lack a single number, among their long, otherwise regular rows of figures. These glitches in his compositions “symbolize,” he says, a genetic flaw, an imperfection or a disturbance that causes serious consequences in the social realms of ethics or law, the place where interpersonal conduct becomes publicly codified. “Can we find these missing [numbers],” he muses. “And amend these social conditions?"^[1]

Development

Occasionally Jiao creates works that appear to depart from his usual, emotionally distanced and enigmatic compositions, such as #26 and #51 from the series of more than 60 paintings he has completely since 2006. Although they each contain numbers, they are very different from the majority of his works and from one other: #26 is a mysterious two-part composition that seems to represent an explosion or eruption atop a nearly empty, light-gray field, while #51, a hotly colored red with a gigantic X across it, marks what Jiao calls a “turning point” in his output. Since completing it, he has painted numbers only in mirror-like reverse, also symbolizing, he says, negation. In Chinese, this series was originally named yuan daima, or “IP language for original code,” he explains. “But to me it indicates [extremity or] social destruction.” For viewers, it is an indication of change in the probing work of an artist with a distinctly philosophical bent.^[1]

Exhibitions

In 2007, Jiao participated in group exhibitions "Night View - Shanghai Artists Invitation Exhibition", "Interaction - Shanghai A4 Artists Studio Exhibition", "Shanghai International Art Expo", and "Shanghai Young and Middle Aged Artists Exhibition", all in Shanghai, China.

Interviews 

To view a video interview of Jiao with Studio Door China, click here.

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Robert Atkins, "Jiao Zhenyu", Studio Door, November 2008.