| Zhang Xiaotao was born on 1970 in Hechuan, | | | | hands of a skillful painter like Zhang, it reflects the |
| Chongqing, China, he lives and works in Beijing and | | | | character of an ancient culture while embracing |
| Chengdu, China. He is an artist full of enthusiasm | | | | modern themes and colors. Fish, snakes, human |
| and good at argument. He is so talkatively | | | | faces, beer mugs, condoms-these repeating |
| repelling that no one could plunge himself into the | | | | elements appear in intricate layers of paint that |
| conversation you could also be able to read his | | | | defy opacity. The creatures' hues are often the |
| articles about the paintings. Walking into Zhang | | | | blues and greens of the traditional Chinese pottery |
| Xiaotao's "A Joyful Time," where huge oil and | | | | and carvings that abound in jade markets, but |
| watercolor paintings invite viewers into a bright | | | | placed in front of or behind the animals' outlines |
| underwater world of copulating frogs and | | | | are shapes and symbols that would challenge, if |
| intertwined human forms, the reaction "elated and | | | | not startle, any unsuspecting market |
| free" comes back to mind. Amphibious creatures | | | | habitué. Zhang's frequently recurring dreams |
| float unencumbered in washes of blue, green, and | | | | about drowning presumably account for all the |
| orange paint, their outlines making whimsical, | | | | water imagery in his work; his preoccupation |
| eye-pleasing shapes. So it is with great surprise | | | | stems from two swimming accidents when he |
| that one learns of the artist's background-that he | | | | was seven years old: one happened at the shore |
| nearly drowned as a child and is afraid of water, | | | | of the powerful Yangtze River, where he was |
| and that he comes from a country whose | | | | playing with his companions. His brother's friend |
| reproductive policies are heavy-handed and | | | | had pulled him into the current, teasingly, but soon |
| punitive. | | | | lost control and had to swim ashore. Zhang |
| This is Zhang's first exhibit in the United States, | | | | remained out in the water and was almost dead |
| accompanying a month-long residency at the | | | | before an adult who could brave the current |
| Pacific Bridge Gallery, which last spring garnered | | | | came to his rescue. That tentative, struggling |
| attention for its controversial exhibition of Ho Chi | | | | moment between life and death informs the |
| Minh portraits. Zhang, who is 29, has a degree in | | | | artist's work expansively. |
| oil painting and teaches it at Southwest Jiaotong | | | | View Zhang Xiaotao paintings, biography, solo |
| University in Chengdu.Among Chinese artists, oil | | | | exhibitions, group exhibitions and resource of |
| painting has caught on as a fashionable and | | | | Zhang Xiaotao artist. View art online at The |
| innovative expression of Western energy. In the | | | | Saatchi Gallery - London contemporary art gallery. |