VIVIEN ZHANG

From a distance, the painting looks flat, like it
might have been made with a computer. You can
even recognise the processes from Photoshop:
a sharply cropped image, tiled into a grid of
repeated forms, a soft gradient used to give the
impression of depth or a curve. But the longer
you look, the less perfect the picture becomes:
vigorous brushstrokes differentiate the red
sweeps; the half-transparent doodles that float
across the top layer have a scumbled edge, not
the smoothness of a vector. The most telling
detail is the drips. Each is roughly the right
shape, but some wobble, others are too short,
some are painted on. These chance marks, made
by gravity, are almost impossible to replicate.
Zhang works in layers, beginning with drawing,
tracing sections onto stencils, and moving
them around to create ‘shadows’ of her original
lines. During lockdown, the work has become
increasingly self-referential, started to breed
ideas from within itself. The motif repeated in
Imitation Complex (2021) is a lovingly rendered
copy of a section from Echo Complex 2 (2021),
which is more recognisable as a red flower
native to southern China, with distinctive black
seeds. In other works, virtuosic lines of calligraphy
are layered with minute, highly worked passages
of detail that reference craft or mechanical
processes – the pattern of a kilim rug, for instance.
Looking for ‘imperfections and errors in the ways
the world is structured’, Zhang’s paintings are
puzzles to pore over, testaments to the pleasures
and possibilities of things gone awry.
MARTHA BARRAT