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Edutainment > Articles on Art > Contemporary Art Japan > Zhang Xiaochun - born 1959

Zhang Xiaochun

Monsoon - 1994
copyright Zhang Xiaochun

Zhang Xiaochun is one of the fast emerging artists from the Yunnan Art School. The artist works in the woodblock reduction technique. His style is diverse and colorful like Yun Nan, the province where he was born and where he lives and works.

Zhang Xiaochun - Printmaker from Yunnan

Contemporary Chinese printmakers and their works have been more or less unknown in the West until recently - apart from maybe a few museum curators.

artelino began to represent Chinese artists and offer their prints in online auctions in May 2003. From the very beginning it has been an exciting and satisfying experience. And it has not lost anything of its momentum. We encounter new artists, styles, subjects and techniques nearly every month.

Modern Chinese art appears to be a unique result of an encounter of old traditions of one of the greatest cultures in the history of mankind and modern Western influences.

One artist recently caught our very special attention - Zhang Xiaochun. His prints are rather different in style and can be attributed to two different period. There is the period from 1987 to 1994. The artist calls it the Perceptual Period. The print images of this first period are rather expressive with dominating brilliant red colors.

Zhang Xiaochun's second period is called the Brown Period. Our fascination was immediately centered on this print type - these images of Dai people in a rural environment of mostly brown-red-yellowish color gradations. At first sight and from a certain distance they look like photo-screens. But they are actually woodblocks. When you look at them from a short distance you realize it.

Zhang Xiaochun's prints have something of a quiet vitality and exotic mystery. It is hard not to be mesmerized.

Images of the Dai People

Zhang Xiaochun

Gazer - 1998
copyright Zhang Xiaochun

The people shown on Zhang Xiaochun's print images are from the ethnic group of the Dai. The Dai live in the autonomous region of Xishuangbanna in the South of Yunnan. They practice Buddhism, have their own language and their own characters. Their culture can be traced back to B.C., and there are ethnic and linguistic ties to the Tibetan people. You can find more information about the Dai people on China Discovery.

From what we understand based on the information we have, the artist Zhang Xiaochun lives and works in Xishuangbanna among the Dai people.

Resume

• 1959 - born at Mojiang, Yun Nan province
• 1980 - graduated from Simao Art School, Yun Nan province
• 1980 - graduated from Yun Nan Fine Art Academy

Exhibitions and Collections

The woodblock prints of Zhang Xiaochun have been widely exhibited at national Chinese and also at international expositions - in the U.S.A, Japan, Spain and Taiwan.

Prints by Zhang Xiaochun are to be found in a number of Chinese museums.

• Shanghai Artist Association
• Shen Zhen Art Museum
• Jiang Su Art Museum
• Shen Zhou Print Museum
• Qing Dao Art Museum

Awards

• 1990 - The print "Evening Flute" won the Outstanding Artwork Prize of National Youth Print Exposition
• 1998 - The print "In the Wind" won the Copper Prize of the Fourteenth National Print Exposition
• Outstanding artwork prize of the Eighth National Artwork Exposition
• Luxun Print prize

Affiliations

• Member of Chinese Artists Association
• Member of Chinese Printmakers Association
• Member of Yun Nan Artists Association

Woodblock Reduction Prints

Zhang Xiaochun

Dialog in the Dusk - 1996
copyright Zhang Xiaochun

The artist works in the traditional woodcut technique. He uses oil colors for printing. A speciality of Zhang Xiaochun is the so-called woodblock reduction technique that he and other artists developed in Yunnan. The technique uses one woodblock for all colors by cutting the image for the next color from the same block. Thus the original woodblock is reduced further and further, color by color.

Apart from the artistic challenge, this technique assures that after the first edition no further copies can be printed. The original block does not exist any longer.

Editions

Zhang Xiaochun

Sheperdess - 1993
copyright Zhang Xiaochun

The prints by Zhang Xiaochun that we have seen so far, are all from small editions of 10 to 20 copies. All prints were signed and numbered by the artist.

On some of the artist's prints we found a new way of numbering that we have not seen before on Western or contemporary Japanese prints. It was a numbering like "AP 2/10". When we asked our Chinese partner about this unusual combination of "AP" and numbered, we learned that the reason was a misconception by the Chinese artists of the meaning of "AP". They considered AP to be a marking for a private print that belonged to the artist or that the artist had given as a present to friends. (For those of you, who are not familiar with AP, it means "artist proof". AP was originally meant as a mark to identify a print as a proof copy for the artist - not intended for commercial sale and outside of the official numbered edition. However it is rather customary in the West to increase an edition by issuing AP copies.)

In an nutshell, when you encounter a print by Zhang Xiaochun signed AP and numbered, please ignore the AP. It has no real meaning.

Red Memory - Statement by Zhang Xiaochun

Zhang Xiaochun

Himmelspferde - 1996
copyright Zhang Xiaochun

The following text is a personal statement by the artist explaining his adoration for red colors and a bit of his artistic mission.

"People have different ways to enjoy the pleasures of recollection. I would like to use the prints to record my life. Glance over them at my leisure.

My feeling, experience, thoughts and passions are expressed by those colors and texture marks in my prints. Harmony and confusion, fine and rough lines - they all remained in those fade paper. My understanding of life is also in my prints. It is red, and always remains red, and never fades. My art works casually and occasionally record my life's journey.

I live far away from noisy cities. And I walk into the natural world to experience primeval life. Multi-life formation runs its course in nature. There is no language and there are no characters to record history but an old song or a fairy tale. Any artistic inspiration could come from nature, such as a strong ox, a mysterious village, a log cabin, a dress with embroidering totem, a vigorous pine tree or a long mountain path. The primeval memory is like a drop of water, and blood moistens my heart and soul.

Many times I go into the countryside and to tribal people, I see the fighting of animals and the lighting bonfire. I believe it is the nature that deduces life and death. Red fire stands for life, black earth stands for death. Art is colorful and thus it is lively. Our life becomes more meaningful. When wild flowers grow all over the mountains, they make whole mountains look red. It is the color of life. I see the beauty and simplicity of nature. Only red color can express it. Therefore I could keep this red memory deep in my mind."

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Contemporary Art Japan