RUXUE ZHANG

April 20 - June 15, 2019
Artist Reception: Saturday, April 20 4-6 PM

CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is delighted to present Seeing is Forgetting, Ruxue Zhang’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Zhang’s paintings explore the philosophical and the metaphysical, her subject matter could be defined as an observation on the act of looking. Seeing is Forgetting opens April 20 and runs through May 18, with an artist reception on Saturday April 20, from 4-6 PM.

Whether depicting moonlight on hands, various renderings of a tesseract, celestial bodies or un-folded paper with zeros and ones suggesting one's place in our solar system, Zhang’s work offers a moment to reflect on the significance we give to the objects that give us perspective. Zhang meticulously renders moments over and again, referencing previous paintings through a mediated layer of time and space. Using humor and nostalgia, Zhang’s work floats between the familiar and the bizarre. Toilet bowls, lovingly rendered, float in space, and faceless figures embody empty architectural spaces. Zhang’s process utilizes photography and depictions of paintings within paintings within paintings to alter time and space and present an uncanny reality that defies easy answers.

Ruxue Zhang was born in 1992 in Wenzhou, China. She received her BFA from Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2015, and her MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2018. Her work has been exhibited at Root Division, Embark Gallery, and Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, at Cal State University in Los Angeles, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing and at the CAFA Museum in Beijing. Zhang has multiple works in the collection of CAFA Museum in Beijing, and the Ministry of Education in China. She lives in works in San Francisco, CA.