ZHAI LIANG 翟倞

Current And Upcoming Exhibitions:

Reality and Surreality, Major Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, Today Art Museum ,Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, 04.14, 2026 - 06.01, 2026

Xu Hongxiang&Zhai Liang: The Gap Between Day and Night, ShanghART SUHE, Shanghai, 05.15, 2026 - 06.27, 2026

Introduction

Zhai Liang, born in Shanxi in 1983, graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2006, and later from the Oil Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. Zhai currently lives and works in Shanghai.

Zhai Liang excelled at using ambiguous symbols to lead viewers into literary moments. He always cleverly combined humorous vignettes from short stories and comedy films and ambiguous perceptions and visions from everyday life with the contemplation of social relationships.
Recently his works mark a bold departure from his previous work, reflecting a new round of destruction and creation from a long-time lover of literature and painting. Zhai takes a relaxed approach as he gives form to personal memories, but he also imbues the images with the woven textures of narratives that seem nearly—but not quite—over. His trademark humor continues in these paintings, but he no longer relies solely on comedic figures and their gestures from real life and media; instead, he transforms them into towering, jelly-like shapes comprised of countless curved lines and restless rounded surfaces.
In other pieces, Zhai secretly grafts rural carnival scenes painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his son and images from a trip to India a few years ago that had an immense influence on his subsequent work onto spontaneous Chinese experience. Nostalgic variants of legendary works of literature, the romance of colleagues riding their bicycles home from the factory, and the sophistication of the pair dancing era are deeply implanted in still other paintings.