Zhang Jiong, born in 1991, currently lives in Chengdu, Sichuan.
The countryside paintings of Zhang Jiong are more of an anomaly to contemporary Chinese art. This is because we rarely find in his artwork fierce responses to modern culture, modern trends and modern life. Faced with the anxieties and spectacles of modern society, Zhang Jiong, like traditional Chinese literati of the Wei and Jin dynasties, retreats to Sichuan to write poetry with his painting brush. "My eyes are tired of viewing distant landscapes and my heart yearns for the idyllic life." In Zhang Jiong's art world, the village with its hometown significance is a separate world, a metaphor for society, philosophy and nature. The independence of the village allows Zhang Jiong to view the city and modern society with greater peace and clarity of thought. The metaphor of the village allows Zhang Jiong to constantly draw from the countryside to express his feelings and convey his peace and clarity.
"It is my belief to put the meaning of life in painting." Zhang Jiong enjoys painting, he paints on canvas, on wooden boards, and on homemade walls, and he even names most of his social media accounts "Zhang Jiong Paintings". The paintings of Zhang Jiong are less complex in expression and less elaborate in conception, preferring to reconstruct simple things and symbols from the countryside, giving the images a serene visual effect and inner feeling. In Orchard 2, the horse is a symbol of the journey, of curiosity and fascination with the unknown; the trees, the sky and the grassland symbolize an intoxication with life in the present. Zhang Jiong describes his Orchard series in the following way: "I don't know in which years I lost myself. When I look back in the rush of the seasons, I can no longer find a glimpse of the past. At this point, we can only plant our gardens full of the scenery we have been waiting for and take a moment of solace in the harvest."