Titled 'Faces', the inaugural exhibition at Hauser & Wirth's new location in Hong Kong will feature new paintings by Zhang Enli created in the past three decades. The nearly 100 works on view include figurative paintings from the 1990s to early 2000s and the artist's everyday objects series from the 2000s to early 2010s, along with abstract works from the early 2010s until the present day. These gestural canvases reflect Zhang Enli's progression to looser, freer brushwork that has become prominent in the artist's style in recent years and reveals the artist's compelling and continued exploration into abstract form. While anchored in figuration with descriptive titles, Zhang Enli seeks to capture the 'essence' of his subjects rather than their physical representation through these works. His solo exhibition at the Long Museum, Shanghai opens on 7 November 2023.

Zhang Enli first gained acclaim in the 1990s for symbolic, figurative paintings. Within these early works, the perspective was often skewed to heighten the drama of the object's shape, or to enlarge its symbolic importance. Zhang Enli has frequently returned to a personal iconography centred on the more prosaic aspects of contemporary life, drawn to imagery of quotidian objects that are sensitively rendered and imbued with stories. In more recent years, the artist has turned to the outside world, urban dwellings and nature, blurring the boundaries between inside and out. In a series of installations, known as Space Paintings, Zhang Enli paints directly onto the walls of a room to create immersive environments. These range from the abstract, where colour and gesture recall sights and sounds of a particular place, to more figurative reproductions.

Gallery address: G/F & 1/F, 8 Queen’s Road Central