Writings on Zhang Enli’s work often focus on his subtle depictions of humanity and solitude. His early works revolve around the unavoidable transformation of the way of life, disturbance and the suffocating pressure that ensues, often threatening displacement. He sites dislocation as a primary condition of life, using it as a constructive backbone for a narrative praxis. Tales of permanent loss and subsequent retrieval are returned to the social and public realms to be tested for their potential to define contemporary conditions in the metropolis. Zhang Enli creates both a comforting and uncomfortable consciousness of presence. He illuminates the underside of society and his bold and unpretentious brushstrokes often reveal the grotesquerie of contemporary civilization.

He portrays details from ordinary objects that are often neglected or downplayed in conventional painting. His brushstrokes come close to traditional Chinese ink painting where every stroke on the canvas articulates parts that are significant to the whole.

Zhang Enli's mode of engagement entails photographically documenting his close environment. He then employs the photographs’ claim on the real to develop his observation of his surroundings, though in a more intuitive and fragmented manner on the canvas. The circuitous route by which Zhang Enli comes to the image is typical of a methodology based on the experience of memory. It is not the repeated image that is central to each painting, but rather the process of reflecting on the events and objects that led him to it.

Accordingly, in his current paintings of trees, only fragments are revealed to the spectator. As in his other work, these paintings come across as 'un-finished' because they are semi-transparent and leave some of the white canvas exposed. This can be understood as the emergence of reality in the sphere of art, or, perhaps, vice versa.

Zhang Enli was born in Jilin province in 1965. He graduated from Wuxi Technical University, Arts and Design Institute in 1989. Today he basices in Shanghai. Recent exhibitions include Beyond the Crisis, The 6th Curitiba Biennial, Museu Alfredo Andersen, Curitiba, Brazil (2011); Gwangju Biennale 2010, 10,000 Lives, Gwangju Biennale Hall, Gwangju museum of Art, Gwangju Folk Museum, Korea (2010); Warm Up, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2009); Trans Local Motion-the 7th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2008); Circle, not worth seeing, Objectif exhibition, Antwerp, Belgium (2007); Recent solo exhibitions include Zhang ENli, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2011); Zhang ENli, Hauser & Wirth, New York, U.S.A. (2011) ; Zhang ENli, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); Zhang Enli's Solo Exhibition, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2009); Zhang Enli's Solo Exhibition, Ikon Museum of Art, Birmingham, U.K. (2009); 2006 Armory Show in NewYork, HAUSER & WIRTH,New York, U.S.A.