Lot Essay
Zhao Zhao excels at creating artworks that push the boundaries of traditional artistic expression. He employs a wide variety of media in his work including painting, photography, and performance art, once placing a refrigerator in a desert as a mode of expression. The idea of the Constellations series originated from one of Zhao Zhao's previous work where panes of glass were shot full of bullet holes. As light passed through it, layers of refraction projected the textures of celestial objects. Although in this work, the medium and format are changed, he captured the textural quality of broken glass while preserving elements unique to the painted medium. Zhao Zhao is an avid collector of blue and white porcelain. As an artist, he considers blue to be the median colour between black and white. The hand-drawn lines in blue and white appear to be masculine and aggressive at times, while at other times they are feminine and gentle. The effect is akin to the visual experience of seeing an after-image. Despite being a static image, the explosive power of the bullets is still keenly felt.