After growing up, finishing education and even following an extreme experience, people will enter a state of introspection. In a state without any framework and one is aware of the original meaning of individual life once again. So that it is obvious that all the relationships of our surrounding people and the value of culture is a kind of load imposed on an individual life. Or it can be said that cultures, habits and social values kidnap a living and independent life, creating a corrupt social cell. I see every child go through this kind of baptism, until they become a stray lamb or a victim of the fanatical. Life means relying on something, or it will be too fragile! Religion is essentially a common belief of “being” within different races or groups. A particular religious sect is injected with a different content according to its own original system’s framework and understanding, which is the religious group’s knowledge and understanding of the world, also their trusting attitude of the world, and is the value that they pursue and advocate. The belief of the world and the group constitutes the order of one’s operation. The conflict diverts from a force to use her power and influence to deny a different belief of another life. Thus it creates a kind of brutality! It is sad when we live in a social group in which we don’t and can’t have a belief. I demand the knowledge as an individual life, or to self-examine civilization as a life, so that I prefer Indian spiritualist Krishnamurti’s proposition, “There’s no way to the truth. You can't through any religion or approach reach it. I absolutely insist on this idea. Now that the truth is infinite, without any bondage and no way to go, it is certain that it isn’t in need of an artificial organization. No group has the right to force people to follow a particular way. If you understand this, you will find faith can’t be organized. Faith is a personal thing, you can't and shouldn't make it organized, if you do this, truth will become a zombie doctrine, and also become a plaything for the cowardly and temporarily unable to satisfy people, truth can’t be subordinated to people, people must be close to it through their own efforts. The mountain can’t automatically move to your feet, so that you have to do your best to cross valleys, climbing cliffs, to get to the top of the mountain.” Being independent and seeking self-improvement, experience the pure and real life is such a hard thing to do! For me, abstract painting is a self-reflection! The longer you go the farther you are away from the tradition and the familiar symbols that appeal to a large number of audiences. Until in another way, or self-talk symbols there is an appeal to the meaning of the most original life: the sincere, frank, free and the affirmation of life!

Text by Burigude Zhang in Beijing in 2014

About the artist

Burigude Zhang was born in Inner Mongolia, China in 1961. He grew up before starting school on the Mongolian prairie during the period of the Cultural Revolution. After graduation from the Teacher Training College of the Inner Mongolian locality, he worked as a high school teacher in visual art. Two years later, in 1982 he was accepted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, the most prestigious fine art institute where he built up his ambitions and knowledge as a great artist. He accomplished his Bachelor degree from CAFA, he then started teaching at the Beijing Union University. He was always seeking a challenge with his training in traditional and institutionalized concepts. In 1994 he visited England, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree in Painting and a Master of Arts degree in Printmaking from Bradford College, England on a full scholarship. He was invited to be the artist in residence at Bradford College from 1998 continuing to 2000. As his mentor Ian?Colverson commented: “His work is no longer located?within?most contemporary Chinese painting, which is either traditional or influenced by contemporary Western culture, but rather locates itself between cultures occupying the space of ‘otherness’, an individual approach to the root of myriad phenomena.” He lived and worked as a professional artist in Toronto since he emigrated to Canada as an outstanding artist in 2000. In 2009 he moved back to Beijing, leading the abstract painting of China with his unique personality and original visual language. He has had many solo and selected exhibitions in many countries. His work was highly regarded as a very unique creative style with a strong oriental cultural identity but also a powerful contemporary expression.

About the exhibition

Title: “Using a Fundamental Thing to Connect All the Principles” Abstract Painting by Burigude Zhang

Host: Jiahua Art Gallery

Sponsors: Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Guangzhou Huitian Brand Planning CO., LTD

Venue: Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre

Opening Reception: at 16:00 on August 20, 2014

Duration: 10:00 - 20:00, from August 20 to August 25, 2014

Courtesy of the artist and Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre.

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.