Zhang Ke

Zhang Ke’s work questions ideas of “stability” and “common sense” by contrasting a harmonious surface with an unsettling interior. Her practice brings together illusion and reality, living forms and still life, often producing spaces where these opposing forces coexist in tension. Through a process of disassembling, reconstructing, and juxtaposing traditional imagery, she reveals the latent possibilities within inherited visual languages, using their primitive qualities to create layered illusions. The compositions often carry a quiet elegance that draws the viewer in, only to reveal dissonance beneath the surface. This interplay between beauty and unease allows her to explore the fragile balance between order and disruption. By using meticulous technique and subtle shifts in tone, Zhang creates environments that feel both familiar and uncanny, as though grounded in memory yet suspended in dreamlike detachment. Her paintings function as spaces for contemplation, where cultural heritage is reframed through a contemporary lens. In bringing together fragments of tradition with a modern sensibility, Zhang’s practice engages with both personal and collective narratives, presenting imagery that is at once rooted in history and charged with psychological complexity. ...