CHENG Yuzheng’s Paintings

The painting series “Pigment” is an ongoing project by Cheng Yuzheng, which can be viewed as a form of self-reflexive painting—depicting pigment through pigment itself. Similar to his other works, the spatial structure of the paintings is constructed with precise horizontal and vertical lines. In this series, he attempts to depict still lifes of paint jars using the simple techniques employed by early Italian Renaissance painters such as Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, and Masaccio when portraying figures, thereby endowing these inanimate objects with a certain human warmth.

In the “Lily” series (alongside “Apple, Pear,” etc.), Cheng Yuzheng focuses on everyday objects, enlarging them or placing them in unconventional perspectives. This creative approach was partly influenced by American photographer Edward Weston. Through these images, he aims to render familiar, everyday objects alien, thereby liberating them from their originally assigned meanings.

Dutch painting from the 15th to 17th centuries profoundly influenced Cheng Yuzheng’s artistic practice. Interior scenes, a central theme in both early religious works and later secular depictions, exhibit naturalistic qualities yet fundamentally differ from pure naturalism. For those ancient masters, reality served as a medium to reveal the mysticism beyond the tangible. It is precisely this hidden mystique within the ordinary that drives Cheng Yuzheng’s creation of interior scenes. He does not pursue dramatic or illogical surrealism, but rather constructs believable yet subtly surreal scenes through the combination of everyday elements. Normality may be quietly disrupted by a single detail, or an unexpected object may appear, yet these combinations must still align with everyday experience. To him, this working method resembles the mechanics of magic.

During the creative process, Cheng often invites friends to model, guiding them into specific states. The final images frequently synthesize elements extracted from multiple photographs, sometimes incorporating found materials—sources ranging from art history to film or internet imagery. The spatial structure of his compositions relies on precise horizontal and vertical lines, an approach inspired by Josef Albers’ use of simple structures to evoke spatial depth.

For instance, in Living Room, the figure shooting itself in the head on the balcony background is taken from Takeshi Kitano’s renowned film Sonata; while the painting hanging on the room’s wall is Cheng Yuzheng’s beloved work Embroidered Curtain and Morning Mirror by the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Shen.