Introduction

Zhang Meng (b. 1983, Tianjin, China) attended the Aufbaustudium at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe in Germany from 2016-2018. She participated in the residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands in 2025, and now lives and works in Hangzhou, China. In her depictions of trivial moments and fragments of everyday life, Zhang Meng blends and extends the materials retrieved from dreams, memories, childhood and mythologies.  She tries to connect the visual image with her inner world and subconscious, illuminating the fragility of existence, conveying a sense of vulnerability and estrangement.

In her recent works, she exploited her spiritual experiences as a language of art, such as the practice of yoga, the connection with the inner child, and the introspection and healing of trauma, attempting to reach beyond the tangible reality. Her drawings/art become an experimental and expanded record of her spiritual trajectory where reality, spirituality, and the visual communicate. This is also tangible in the media she employs: charcoal, pencil, hot wax, and paper, which are naturally brittle, slippery, and ephemeral, opening countless perceptual possibilities and inviting one to find oneself in the garden of forking paths.

Her works are featured in several museum and gallery exhibitions such as: On a Sentimental Moon, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2023); Forest-Stift, Luis Leu (Germany, 2023); Karls Ruhe, AroundSpace Gallery (solo, Shanghai, 2022); Fragmentation is Abstraction, C-space (Berlin, 2022); We are so many here, Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, 2022); Works on Paper, Stevenson Gallery, (Cape Town, 2021); LISTE Art Fair Basel 2021 (dual solo, Basel, 2021); Tones and Toes, Tabula Rasa Gallery (solo, London, 2021); Ich Singe, Nordheimer Scheune (solo, Nordheim, 2021); Let Painter Talk, Taikang Space, (Beijing, 2021); NINININI PENG, neewhom, Gebäude im Passagehof 24 (Karlsruhe, 2019); Regionale 19, Kunsthalle Palazzo (Switzerland, 2018), etc.