Xianwei Zhu China, b. 1971

A painter who moves between East and West, who blends Far Eastern philosophy and ideas with those of the West, mixing them together and reinterpreting them. A modern Caspar David Friedrich with roots in Ming painting, spiced with Martin Heidegger's view of the world.

Too much of a good thing? Too much of a “mishmash” of different eras, intellectual currents, and styles? Not at all. The painter Xianwei Zhu knows how to reconcile all of this and develop an independent visual language influenced by both East and West.

Born in Qingdao in 1971 and raised in Zen Buddhism, he discovered his love and interest in the West while studying art at universities in Shandong and Hangzhou. Thus he became a “wanderer between worlds.”

Zhu combines the central theme of Ming painting – “nature and harmony” – with the “transcendent solitude” of Caspar David Friedrich and, in the spirit of Heidegger, poses the question of existence and temporality to the viewer in his work.