Visual Arts

Born in Sichuan Province of China in 1968, Feng Zheng Jie graduated from the Fine Arts Education Department of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1992 and subsequently obtained a Master’s Degree from the Oil Painting Department in 1995. He currently lives and works in Beijing.

Reminiscent of Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe screen prints, Feng Zheng Jie’s works are characterised by his gaudy, futuristic portraits of fashionable women. Influenced by Chinese traditional folk drawing and modern advertising, Feng Zheng Jie produces generic portraits of women with splashes of fluorescent colours, big hair, luscious lips and vacant diverging eyes. Feng Zheng Jie explains that the unique glances represent the clashing coexistence of curiosity and perplexity of modern Chinese society. In the process of opening to the consumer society, people have become curious and eager to learn; whilst all these innovations dazed them, leaving them uncertain about making choices. The artist is widely regarded by the contemporary art world as a pioneer of Kitsch painting, although such critique concerns Feng Zheng Jie little, nor was painting Kitsch his intention. The artist only follows his emotions as well as forms of criticism, provocation and introspection that he expresses through the palette of colours, style and subjects in his paintings.

Feng Zheng Jie’s recent work Animals and Human Beings series is to express the harmonious and ambiguous relationship between human beings and animals. This is the warm expression of living in a harmony environment, also to explore the complex tension of modern society and the inner feelings of the needs and dependencies.