PORT FO LIO

Z H A OW E N R U I

Z H A OW E N R U I

Twisted Face

Most people will encounter fear, anxiety and even depression under intensive pressure. No need to denial that sometimes I am in this situation too. Subconsciously, I conceal myself with hands, trying to escape from the challenge. Meanwhile, I am struggling to face the challenge, take a glimpse of the reality. This self-portrait, named “Twisted Face”, demonstrates my assertiveness of confronting the hardness, ready to fight the fight, in spite of the predicament that I might be trapped in.

2014 55*110cm Pencil

To Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon is one of my favorite artists. His painting style often arouses intensive and distinctive feelings under the thickly painted covering. This double-face deformity is a representative example of Bacon’s emotionally raw imagery. This red acrylic paint denotes the zealous desire and the silent yell of Francis Bacon.

2014Fingerprint painting

80*110cmAcrylic

Portrait of a Janitor

In this paining, I portray the janitor who cleans the studio where my portfolio has been created. His skin is dark which makes the brightness of his T-zone even more drastic. That brightness has been caused by his vitiligo. The janitor was fired by his previous employer because of this disease. He once complained to me about the social discrimination that he has been treated with. In this work, I mimic the style adopted by Francis Bacon in his self-portrait. The deformed face demonstrates the pains that the janitor has to survive, while his swollen eyes are filled with nothing but sadness and sympathy exuding from his heart.

201360*90cm

Acrylic, oil paint

Go away, Dudes

Riding the crest of art progression in early 20th century, many female artists were notable, such as Marie Laurencin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Romaine Brooks, etc. They were courageous to challenge the artistic main stream dominated by their male counterparts. Equipped with outstanding painting skills and bold ideas, those female artists were honored by later generations. In this collage, a woman is presented who stretches out her crossed legs and pose herself with a comfortable gesture. The background image is inspired by Piet Mondrian’s work Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow (1930). Placing such a female figure characterized by her unstrained style on the background male-masterpiece analogue is to assert the dazzling female artistic talents which should not be valued less because of the gender discrimination.

201280*120cm

Colored papers, Acrylic

The Disappeared Eternity

Both of Marilyn Monroe and Route 66 were born in 1926, were both indelible icons in American history and the world contemporary culture. They had both faded away in American’s daily life since Marilyn’s death and the bypassing of Route 66 in 1960’s. However, being American history markers, Marilyn Monroe and Route 66 have been revived from time to time in the contemporary media. The black-and-white image of Marilyn Monroe keeps revealing on magazines, commercials, and posts; while “Historic Route 66” signs are found along the route such as gas stations, motels, cafés, drive-in movie theaters and motels. They disappeared once, but they all become fixtures in popular culture and combinations of historic and modern alignments. This work stresses out the influence of disappeared social icons which are unforgettable as of this time being, because they symbolize the past from which the present derives from.

201480*100cm

Acrylic, cloth, oil paint

A big mouth, composed of yellow lips and red teeth, is centered in this drawing. It represents people’s inordinate desire to consume much more than they actually require. The background is portrayed with mosaics, and the top-part colored square pieces are scattering. Metaphorically, the world is collapsing because of the rapacious appetites of human beings that hard to fulfill. The blackish stains on the red teeth symbolize the deterioration of our applied tools for possessing more, along with the collapsing world that we will be finally buried within.

201460*60cmAcrylic

G l u t t o n y

Sex and City

A metropol i tan c i t y is ful l of modern skysc rapers characterized by steel frame and curtain walls which keep people from seeing inside. It is just like the eye-catching superficiality in nowadays mainstream media that drifts people’s attention from the insights. Men are maneuvered by their biological desires and can only see the skin-deep beauty of their counterparts, which are represented in the work as head-less female bodies. These two bodies rise from the crowded skyscrapers and stretch up to the heaven, just like the bursting lusts nourished in our contemporary culture. Until that one day the free space over our head is crammed with avaricious desires that people are prone to underestimate the value of insightful thoughts.

201480*100cmAcrylic

The Instinct

Male instincts are demonstrated in this panting. Males are urged by their sexual drive to capture the physical existence of the female but they can hardly see the truth underneath the skin beauty. They climb up hardly, but they barely stand high unless they could free themselves from the animal instinct.

201480*100cmAcrylic

D e c e p t i o n

Deceptive interpersonal relationships are the objects presented in this painting. When conflicts are encountered, some people are prone to deceptive behaviors which endanger others’ benefits. The black man is an icon of the person who covers his true intentions. The crossed back lines are representatives of the falsified network which is set up to trap the targets. Ironically, when people are setting up traps for others, they are also crawling on the net of traps created by others. Deceptions, eventually, will capture all the people on the net; no one could escape from it.

2014120*160cmAcrylic

The Whale

The abstract represents the elements in a whale slaughtering scenario and conveys a condense emotion for sympathy. Whales are struggling for survivals in a red blood sea flowing out of their own traumatic cuts left by the brutal human hunters.

2013120*150cmAcrylic

Sewing Machine

A sewing machine is chosen as the model for this still life painting. This machine was manufactured decades ago with a classic style, like an antique. The structural complexity deteriorates in nowadays household facilities. Instead, simplicity is adopted as a principle of machinery beauty. However, the coarse metallic sheen has its own glamour as it shines in this drawing.

201340*55cmOil paint

A b u s e

In this installation, three victims exposed to family abuse are presented. The disassembled limbs and the chopped head are adopted as an exaggerated expression in a typical traumatic scenario of family abuse, physically, and more often, psychologically. This installation is facilitated to provoke the audience’s sympathy upon the severe pain caused by family abuse. Some are physical torture, whilst others are psychological trauma, not visible, but even more unendurable. It exudes an altering message that we should all take actions to prevent family violence and abusive behavior.

2014Installation

1*3*4mPlastic models, Acrylic, Wires

Self-Portrait 17.5

The theme that I chose in this work is my incoming adulthood, I was born in May 2nd 1996. Orange is a color that can render strong emotional feeling. Using orange to illustrate my enthusiasm and the excitement of my adulthood

2013 Photography5184*3456ppi Water colors

The Artist (See video)

This video has been produced to demonstrate the self-identification process of an artist. The artist is wrapped in a complete darkness through the whole scenes which is analogous to self-exploration behaviors taken in vagueness

and confusion.The fluorescent pigments that the artist covered on his face and body represent the indelible impacts that worldly experiences have left on his inner-self, his artistic soul. The further he adventures, the more he experiences, the thicker coatings of fluorescent pigments the artist is

covered with. Eventually, the artists is coated, from head to toe, in layers of pigments which fabricate an outfit coating on his artistic body – the very

authentic expression of his original ideas.By producing this clip, I want to remind all the artists that the external

impacts, recognitions and denials, might make influential impacts on us, but they are just “coatings” which will be dissolved as time goes by. What are under the coating – our innate artistic origins – are the truly valuable

assets to us.

2014Multimedia

Fluorescent pigment

Life with Constraint Masks

The model(myself) pictured in this photo serial represents a specific group of people living under constraint marks, for example, government officials working in a bureaucratic system. People have innate

desires to express themselves, to speak freely. However, the social marks that they have to be equipped with prohibit them doing so. The model is posted in different gestures, yet all suggest that he possesses a fierce yearning to speak up. He looks frightened and fragile. The mark and bandage covering his true face

are the isolators protecting him whilst restraining him.

2014Photography5184*3456ppi

Plaster, bandages, Acrylic

On the Extinction of Species

2013Graphic Design23622*9449ppi

In this work, I colored the species of extinction in red, along with evolutionary progress of human. Human interventions which endanger the balanced ecology of other living beings are distinctive. If the hazardous interventions keep expanding with no control, one day, human beings will be the last specie on the earth, and finally, being wiped off. That is why the last figure is colored in red,

noting the danger with the uncontrolled civilization and industrialization.

2014.11