Born in 1970, Zhou Zixi currently lives and works in Shanghai. Since the beginning of his career in 1993, Zhou’s brushstrokes have progressively evolved to depict national and population’s trauma, collective memory and oblivion, alienation of individual, as well as contemporary events and crises. Rooted in his studies of history and literature as well as a concern for human sufferings, the paintings create profound narratives of time and space, society and individual, politics and culture, disaster and daily life. A relation is then built among the works, which mutually complement and reflect one another while generating an epic-like quality. The artist sees his artistic career as an ideal architecture, which he hopes can penetrate the desolation and absurdity of the entire history of human civilization.
Recent solo exhibitions include: “Ensemble”, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, 2023; “Promised Land”, Tsutaya Books, Shanghai (2021); “The Longing the Distant Worlds Aroused Spoke More to the Home Than to Anything Unknown”, Powerlong Museum, Shanghai (2021); “Spring Outing in Xiaogang”, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai (2015); “One Afternoon…”, ShanghART Gallery, Singapore (2014); “Late Spring and Early Summer”, ShanghART Gallery, Beijing (2011); “China 1946-1949”, ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2008); “Interiors”, BüroFriedrich, Berlin, Germany (2006); “Happy Life”, BizART, Shanghai (2005); “Sorry, I don’t know”, BizArt, Shanghai (2004). Recent group exhibitions include: “Advent: Inventing Landscape, Producing the Earth”, Qianshao Contemporary Art Center, Shanghai (2019); “Side Lanes”, ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai (2019); “Why Not Ask Again?”, 11th Shanghai Biennale, PSA, Shanghai (2016); “China 8, Contemporary Art from China at the Rhine and Ruhr”, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2015); 1st Kyiv International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine (2012); “China Power Station – Part 4”, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Torino, Italy (2010); “China Power Station: Part II”, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway (2007).