Zheng Lu was born in 1978. 

The artist, inspired by the harmony between the function and the inscriptions on the bronzes that record truthfully the Chinese civilization since ancient time, in addition to the artist’s abiding love of seal characters (such is seal character and official script),  bases his sculptures on Chinese calligraphy and its charm.

“Characters Sculptures” here rely on Chinese calligraphy and its appeal for composition and theme whereby the Chinese calligraphy and the sculptures are complementary and interdependent. The Chinese calligraphy is known for its formal beauty, while the characters in Chinese literature are capable of generating rich connotation. A sculpture composed by characters naturally becomes a medium for life experience and artistic expression. Therefore, the charm of words and their connotation is highlighted, and “emptiness” and “hollowness”, “Yin” and “Yang” are reflected as well. The illuminated works thus begin their journey of inexhaustible changes and extension, wandering between “to be or not to be” and “to be fantasy or to be reality”. 

“The works are made up of metal Chinese characters. Those cut out from a plate are call positive characters, and the rest from the openwork negative characters. The work itself has two forms that, though of the same pattern, are based on both positive and negative characters,” namely, the work is paired with characters of the same form, either positive or negative, either in combination or in opposition, either in parallel or in inversion, or in mixture. The characters from the work vary from theme to them. In Revelation, for example, the words are taken from an excerpt in Diamond Sutra with Buddhist reference that the heart has no abode (stressing freedom of the mind and the spirit).”   

“Words used as the carrier of information are wonderful symbols. Artists are obsessed by the subtle affection for words when creating. The symbols are forced to part with the original. The symbolic information fulfills its formal mission under the two covers of ‘staying’ and ‘leaving’ or of being ‘virtual’ and ‘substantial’. They interact, conflict and connect with each other. What connects them is the original body they both come from, and what makes them conflict is the spiritual opposition. ”