'One Afternoon…’ explores the artist’s personal traces, memories, introspections, observations and the complex collage of emotional fragments. As an artist who has yet to be rid of ‘1989 complex’, Zhou Zixi’s works interweaves his poetic reminiscence towards the June 1989 protests in China; his upset towards the numb public, reflections of much agony and isolation growing up after the social trauma. 

Zhou Zixi’s work presents one’s life reflection and metaphor to the state of living condition of his generation. In his canvas, social trauma under the context of unabashed pursuit of material gain, in reality, become a social metaphor, the passion and common memory of the generation passing through 1980s converted into the an invisible scar, the pain could be triggered even by the slightest touch. This solo exhibition forms a dialogue with Van Der Kolk’s statement: Experiencing trauma is an essential part of being human; history is written in blood. Individual experience, past history and on-going history meet and pile one above the other. Some elements repeat in pictures again and again, take concerted action to form intertextuality. The exhibition presents a deliberately static surrounding, provoking emotions felt in subtle landscape and still life yet implying the origin of sentiment in those unexpected and bizarre scenes.

-ShanghART Singapore

Image: © Zhou Zixi
Courtesy of the artist and ShanghART