Preface

As early as the summer of 2016, when the Art For All Society moved to the Macau Art Garden, the first exhibition was that of Zhang Ke. At that time, Zhang Ke established a form of artistic expression that looked like the inner pages of ancient Western religious handmade books. For Zhang Ke personally, it is an adventurous attempt, which was very different from her previous approach. And when this "format" of this art form was established, the artist's thoughts and viewpoints were recorded in this way of “writing images”. At the beginning of this creative process, the artist paid attention to three elements of the classical books: hand-painted decorative border, the misappropriated collage image, and the hand-painted pen drawings. Each piece was completed under the interlacing, overlapping and interaction of these three elements. At that time, the artist tried a lot of various decorative edges to create beautiful pictures.

 

Over time, In Zhang Ke's works, the skills of hand-painted pen drawings become more and more sophisticated, probably because she is now more confident in the lines of the drawings. And the collage images are slowly receding. In 2017, the large-scale hand-made book "Nan Hai Girl" has no collage component in it at all. In the work "For Saramago’s ‘Blindness’", the exquisite hand-painted decorative side is gone, replaced by a straight line that mimics the frame. Small "picture frames" set off the delicate pen and ink drawings. In this new series of works we can find changes in her art form. The frame with rich specifications and symmetrical and orderly arrangement is transformed from the original pages of ancient religious handmade books into solemn altarpieces. This change also allowed Zhang Ke to determine the form of the current exhibition. Altarpieces are usually displayed in front of a Christian church, painted with the story of the Virgin Mary or Jesus, for the worship of the believers.

 

The work “Daddy...” according to the artist, "was inspired by a poem with the  same title by the American poet Sylvia Plath. The poem expresses the poet’s pain living under the shadow of her father in a simple and concise manner. It is the poet's monologue to her father. It was written when Sylvia Plath was thirty years old, and it is about to be my age now. I don't have the pain of living under my father's shadow; my work is just a simple dialogue with my father. Many artists have works dedicated to their children and lovers, but this work is my monologue for my father.” As a woman, she feels that the family would have expected her to be a boy. And she feels contradictory because she knew that she was a woman since the beginning. How can she obtain the power of men? In this exhibition, a total of three works were drawn in the form of an altarpiece. This form itself has a sense of sacredness. The expectations of oneself are also drawn on the altar, and the artist borrows this form to gain strength. At the same time it is a statement of the eagerness to be understood. On a deeper level, it doesn't matter whom you might choose to confide, these works are just saying and reaffirming the choices she has made for her life—live as an artist and be understood.

 

Lai Sio Kit
Curator