Gallery 55 is pleased to announce that Yin Changzhi’s individual exhibition “from One to Another” will open on the 26th of October, 2019. Comprising newly finishes two and three dimensional works of mixed material, the show is scheduled to end on the 1st of December. This is Yin Changzhi’s second solo show at Gallery after last year’s “Wedge”.

One day, a painting hanging on the wall of Yin Changzhi’s studio fell down and was punctured at the corner of the desk. The canvas, which had been taut, was flabby, with raw edges torn at the seams and the back strips exposed. In the face of this painting which has been “disfigured”, Yin Changzhi realized that the consistent rules of viewing were invalid. The material seemed to be suddenly released from the spell of the “surface” of painting. The broken canvas and exposed wooden trestles which were once considered as the “painting” stuff turned so alive, vivid and revelatory.

Yin Changzhi’s painting practice may contribute to this sensitivity to the “unexpected” state, which makes him often stop before the changes of daily things and rethink the habits and laws in his own consciousness and behavior. The accident mentioned above is one of them. Together with other similar events, “accident” promotes his repeated examination of the substance and functionality of painting materials, and also makes him interact with a certain painting tradition. All the time, Yin likes to find the traces of painting from real life. For example, those wooden frames packaging goods will make him feel that they are homologous with traditional painting supporting structures, and the fabrics of various uses also have a close relationship with canvas. Following this path, Yin tried to combine freely and “accidentally” these simple structures and materials in an atypical way, and treat the material properties from a daily perspective, emphasizing the function and potential carried by the material itself, or spread, or reinforce, or wrap, or tighten, so that the material in the surface coating between the colors would generate a fluid and unfinished state. Gradually, he realized that only after the disintegration of the whole nature in the traditional sense of painting, the dialogue between parts would be liberated, making it possible to produce new wholeness and new relations.

As the supports of the painting shift from rectangle to irregular shape, from single layer to multi-layer, from wall to ground, the once absolutely important single surface is dismembered into several small pieces of different sizes, shapes, colors and textures, either scattering in the structure, or connecting and separating to form cross sections that are interrelated but not supportive. On the one hand, the entity of itself is interfered with by the relations which are continually generated, either on the surface of which it is supposed to be supported, or on the surface of which it is supposed to be supported. Together, they construct a temporary spatial structure for the “surface” or “plane” to stay or run briefly. On the other hand, the supports that get rid of the hanging structure balance with gravity in a new way. Its three-dimensional sense of entity and landing increases the ambiguous relationship with sculpture. Through clear and variable shapes and uncertain spatial construction, my practice aims to outline a self-deconstructed and self-generated scene, and at the same time endue form with an indescribable critical state. In such a setting and critical state, what the work shows is its uncontrollability. Any concept and explanation may become a misjudgment or an adaptation of “righteousness”.

Yin Changzhi was born in China in 1984. He received a B.A. from Anhui Normal University in China in 2005; and a M.F.A from China Academy of Art In Hangzhou in 2009. Currently, he lives and works in Wuhu, China.