Making the world smaller has been the creative focus of artist Zhang Xiangxi over the past five years. Zhang has carefully recreated many places familiar to him within the interiors of several discarded television sets and cabinets.

These places include his own apartment at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, a migrant workers' dormitory in a manufacturing plant in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, and a train carriage he traveled in during chunyun (the Chinese Spring Festival travel rush).

 "To hold onto the memory of them, I have reproduced them in a detailed, three-dimensional way," he said. 

Two-dimensional images

Zhang said that the reason he used an empty television cabinet to achieve his aims is because "when you look at the work from a distance, it seems like the two-dimensional image broadcast on a television. It is only when you get closer up to observe it, that the 'picture' becomes three-dimensional."

Entitled Chinese Perspective, Zhang's solo exhibition is ongoing in Shanghai. The exhibits also include a number of his miniature wooden sculptures and paintings. Curator of the show, Mingming describes Zhang's works as having the "characteristics of realism."

"He gives an unadorned description of the nature of life; he abandons any idealized fantasies and meticulously observes life. These realistic works not only convey the artist's experiences and emotions, but also precisely reflect ordinary everyday scenes in China today such as crowded train carriages and migrant workers' dorms," she said.

Prosperity and affluence

Two of Zhang's paintings, Deconstruction along the Riverside During the Qingming Festival and The End of Night Revels of Han Xizai, are inspired by two classic Chinese masterpieces of almost similar names, Riverside Scene on the Qingming Festival and Night Revels of Han Xizai.

The ancient Chinese painting, Riverside Scene on the Qingming Festival was created by the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) painter, Zhang Zeduan and is a portrait of prosperity and affluence along the Bian River in Kaifeng, which was the capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty. However, Zhang Xiangxi's version depicts the same landscape in the same era, but one in which the whole area is rundown and dilapidated.

Night Revels of Han Xizai was created by Gu Hongzhong, who lived during the Five Dynasties and Ten States (907-965) period and details a private living scene of Han Xizai (a minister of the time), who is drinking and banqueting with friends at home. Zhang's The End of Night Revels of Han Xizai shows the same room after the feasting is over, the guests have departed, and Han is on his own.

"Through reworking these paintings that describe ancient Chinese people's lives, I want to show what Chinese people's lives are like today," Zhang said.

Date: Until October 20, 10 am to 6 pm

Venue: AroundSpace Gallery

周围艺术画廊

Address: 294 Sichuan Road Middle 四川中路294号

Admission: Free

Call 3305-0100 for details