Creating Endlessly Warming Forever

Early Paintings: My Youth

Around the 1990s, Chinese society underwent a rapid transformation towards modernity and had tremendous changes in all aspects. Zhao Bandi cleverly transformed traditional academic skills to describe vivid contemporary life. These paintings are sensitive to changes at that time. In the overall atmosphere of ordinary life and numerous details, we see active expectations, longings, wildness, excitement, confusion, loss, sadness, courage, and strength in youth. At the same time, they subtly respond to classical art, Impressionism, and Fauvism in art history, with complex charm and ambiguous meanings. Superb skills, sensitivity to contemporaneity, and knowledge of traditional art are vividly and naturally integrated into these paintings, showcasing both contemporary avant-garde keen insights, traditional elegance, outstanding quality, and extraordinary beauty. With the meaningful composition without narrative, precise modeling, elegant tones, agile brushstrokes, etc., these paintings stood out at that time as soon as they were finished. Reappreciated thirty years later, they remain classic.

New Paintings: Fragments of Beauty

Thirty years have passed.

The world order is undergoing drastic changes, and artists are sensitive and adept at expressing themselves. Zhao Bandi’s views on the manners and morals of the time, as well as public feelings, have also undergone significant changes, and fragments of paintings have been created one after another.

These paintings are intentionally left with large blank spaces, allowing uniquely shaped fragments to float on the canvas. The shape, position, and area of the fragments are carefully arranged, which are as important as the images within. The people, objects, and events in the fragments are inspired by Zhao’s emotions in life. When junk information overflows, he affectionately records them in paintings.

Painting is the oldest medium of art, and each small branch has been occupied by masters. Zhao Bandi, who deeply loves painting, discovered a gap in the painting world filled with masters. He intentionally leaves blank spaces, which is different from the unfinished works of Western masters in the past and the blank spaces in traditional Chinese paintings.

In an era of upheaval, all things collapse and fall apart in the hands of fate. Time flies, and youth fades in an instant. In each “fragmented painting”, the painter’s love, intoxication, attachment, pity, sadness, and sorrow are warmly preserved. Compared with the monotonous “complete” paintings, “fragments” challenge lazy and rigid viewing habits and mediocre artistic interests, make perception more sensitive and open, and allow the audience to experience indescribable things, the most charming aspect of art.

Infinite Warmth: Zhao Bandi’s Hut

“Zhao Bandi’s Hut” consists of a bamboo shack, a bamboo leaf lawn, a hammock, and small paintings inside the shack. The hut is like a shelter on a deserted island in a flood where the artist spent the rest of his life, comforting himself and each visitor. People can rest in the hammock or sit around the lawn to chat. In the shack is Zhao’s privacy: small paintings he created based on inspirations, which are replaced frequently.

The simple and unique atmosphere of the hut helps visitors relax and open their closed minds for sincere communication and exchange, and most importantly, leads to wonders. The hut initiated in 2020, has visited 11 cities at home and abroad in four years: Shanghai, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xiamen, Shenyang, Shunde, Qingdao, Chengdu, Changzhou, Zhengzhou, and Moscow. Tens of thousands of people visited the hut, and many touching stories occurred. In sincere communication, the hut accommodates people’s inner feelings and hopes and gains more functions. Installations, paintings, performances, and videos are united here. Artists and others together form the “artwork”. Art and life overlap here.

This exhibition is generously supported by Mr Sha Ye, Ms Wang Simian, private collection, AYE GALLERY and Simian Foundation. During the exhibition period, Taikang Art Museum will curate a series of programs under the title “Zhao Bendi PLUS”. We sincerely invite influential individuals from various fields to join us in the “Hut”, sharing their visionary insights and inspirations. Our aim is to create a warm and inviting space where minds can dwell, fostering possibilities. We eagerly anticipate your presence in this enriching environment.