Artist Talk with Zhao Mengjun

About

Zhao Mengjun, who lives in China and Germany, has for years been intensively artistically engaged with the life of animals in the great outdoors. In doing so, he ties in with the living tradition practiced in China of letting certain animals, often with symbolic content, flow into his picturesque work. Zhao Mengjun extends this spectrum by the wild ducks, to which he has a special affection. For three years Zhao lived in their community, studied their behavior, observed them drifting in water and wind, between heaven and earth, and in countless works he attributed them almost human qualities - wether on pictures, porcelains or fans. The exhibition shows more than 20 recent works in various, even very large formats, applied with ink and the art of the Chinese brush strokes. His series A Dream of Nantang resembles a dream journey into blessed realms, to a fantasy lake, a lovely place where the duck community spends its life in the changing seasons. A dream of boundless freedom, which not only the artist but also his creatures dream of.