For Zhang Enli, painting itself is a vital activity, no matter his brushes are featuring human activities or illustrating daily objects.

As a painter who depicts the world in the perspective of daily life, ZHANG devotes same attention and passion into every single bucket, wardrobe and individual. All the involved presentation is not only a re-presentation but an expression as well.  Regarding the painting skills, a specific texture and volume of a single object or a group could be sensed through the transformation and conversion of lines and dimensions. Immersed in the inherent space of canvas, some of the objects in the paintings give a feeling that they are dissolved in the thin paint.

In terms of his space painting installations, what does matter is that he breaks all the conventions of the installation art today. Instead of placing single object together to create a so-called installation, ZHANG focuses on the installation art which speaks an artistic language of painting.  While entering his painting installation, what stands among visitors is a dual sense of emptiness that integrated between the time and space. The beingness and the loneliness of the removed objects are featured by the traces they have left in the space. In this circumstance, the involvement of thinking and visualising generated between ‘existence’ and ‘nothingness’ in his paintings, has stimulated much reflection about the idea.

Zhang Enli was born in Jilin province in 1965. He graduated from Wuxi Technical University, Arts and Design Institute in 1989 and currently living in Shanghai. Recently solo exhibitions including: Firstsite, Colchester, England; Hauser & Wirth , Zurich, Switzerland; MOCA, Taopei ShanghART Gallery Main & H-Space, Shanghai; Art Basel Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland; Shanghai; Hauser & Wirth Somerset U.K.(2015); K11 Art Foundation, HK (2014); Museo d’Arte contemporanea di Villa Croce, Genova, Italy; CA, London, England  (2013) Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai(2011); Hauser & Wirth, New York, U.S.A.(2011); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai(2010); HAUSER & WIRTH, London, U.K.(2010); Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland(2009); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, U.K.(2009); ShanghART H-Space(2008) etc.

And recently group exhibitions including:The 1st Antarctic Biennale, Antarctic (2017), Centre Pompidou, Paris, France  (2016); Milan museum of contemporary art, Italy ; Villa Reale's Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan, Italy; Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany (2015); Yokohama Triennial 2014, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2014); Contemporary Art Museum of the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, U.S.A.; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, U.K.(2013); Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India), India(2012); The 6th Curitiba Biennial, Brazil (2011); Gwangju Biennale, Korea(2010); The 7th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai(2008); Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, U.K.(2007); Infinite Painting, Contemporary Painting and Global Realism, Villa Manin- Centre for Contemporary Art Passariano, Italy(2006) etc.