Soul Mapping|Zeno X Gallery Antwerp Borgerhout | 16.09 - 28.10 2023
The group exhibition reflects upon the significance of painting in the history of Zeno X Gallery and presents work by established and upcoming artists. 
The opening will take place on Saturday 16 at both gallery locations.
With works by Mounira Al Solh, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Mary Heilmann, Sanya Kantarovsky, Leah Ke Yi Zheng, Moshekwa Langa, Rosalind Nashashibi, Anh Trần, Jack Whitten, Dan Zhu.



           Leah Ke Yi Zheng (1988) grew up in Wuyishan (China), where she was apprenticed in traditional Chinese painting techniques from an early age. She then went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she developed a style that reflects ancient Chinese techbiques with elements of post-war avant-garde European painting. Zheng controls the legibility of her images through distances of viewing, subject matter, and by varying the transparency of paint embedded in silk canvas. The viewing process is therefor an important part of the experience of her work and is also emphasized by the uneven shapes of her canvases. Zheng begins here work process by making her own wooden stretcher frame, which always takes on a unique shape and deviates from teh rectangular norm. The light, translucent nature of silk provides a curious contrast to the heaviness, but also sometimes warmth, of the wood .

             By destablizing the painting’s infrastructure - sometimes almost invisibly - she emphasizes the object-like nature of the painting. Two works feature the motif of the fusée: the spring mechanism inside a watch or machine. The precision of the altered mechanical form and the command of time create a tension in relation to the fluidity of the paint and the amorphous appearances that sometimes emerge through the back of the canvas. 

              Untitled (Helmut Kolle) (2023) is a portrait of German painter of the same name, who was the partner of art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde. Zheng first drew the portrait in pencil on silk, but then decided to overpaint it with ink and remove the pencil lines, creating a special interplay between the two different media. 

Fusée (sanity)
2023
acrylic, ink, bleach on silk over mahogany stretcher
213 x 160 cm

Fusée (sanity) scale

Untitled (Helmut Kolle)
2023
Ink on silk over mahogany stretcher
22,9 x 17,8 cm

Untitled (Helmut Kolle) details

Untitled (fusée)
2023
pigments and acrylic on silk over mahogany stretcher
29,8 x 25,4 cm

No.16
2023
oil on silk over mahogany stretcher
98,4 x 73,7 cm