Zhang Xinquan is especially fond of certain settings in contemporary Chinese history. Through his depiction, these historical settings and scenes give the audience a feeling of scenes that has faded away.

Zhang Xinquan was born in the 60’s, though he did not personally experience all those historical incidents but his education is more than enough to restore those moments. To portray history in a narrative manner can sometimes be even more realistic than the historical happenings themselves for the artist himself lives within a carefully constructed history. Instead of portraying history in a representational manner, Zhang Xinquan exhibits and shares his understandings of history through a poetic expression. In the eyes of the artist, not only those historical moments will fade, but also all the incidents and narrations that leads up to those moments will also inevitably fade away. However, this does not mean that history and its narrations will be forgotten. They will keep being in existence in the form of imprints in the hearts of the living, creating something similar to what Carl G. Jung refer to as Collective Unconsciousness.

Zhang Xinyuan’s paintings brush upon collective unconsciousness of Chinese people toward their contemporary history. It is unlikely that any other country whose modernization can be more difficult than China’s or whose people’s attitude towards the present more complex, the reason for this is that China has strong and independent cultural traditions. The clashes and compromises between the ways of China and ways of modernization can be portrayed as an dual variation in a piece of chamber music.

Zhang Xinquan’s paintings is not only nostalgic, more importantly, they show the ability of Chinese culture to be tolerant. Teachings which were previously criticized as dogmatic to foreign culture seem now to be totally Chinese. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether China assimilates foreign cultures or it is the foreign cultures that had changed China’s history. Zhang’s paintings not only allow its audience to be immersed in historical indulgence but also create awareness towards the collective identity crises we all face in this globalized age.