Wu Zhengyan

Who is Wu Zhengyan?

Wu Zhengyan is a contemporary Chinese painter based in Beijing. She Graduated from Shanxi University in the Department of Art in 2004 and later taught in Beijing Agriculture college. It was in 2006 that she became a professional artist. As a member of the "post-80s" generation of artists in China, Wu has been involved in several group shows since 2003.

Impressed by the bright colors and patterns, Wu takes the cotton print as a carrier of her language so as to express her thinking towards life through painting. In 2002, she started to draw Coca-Cola, Statue of Liberty, Blessed Mother and Holy Son. Taking a piece of cloth with traditional Chinese Characteristics, she wanted to create a pictorial and language conflict between the two parts mentioned. So she found and installed the typical western images on the cotton print, thus leading to a contrast between the local and the foreign.

Born after 1980s, Wu has been influence by two different cultures from childhood. The invisible tradition could not be cast away while the western culture was brought in, leading the social development with modernism. To combine the traditional cotton print with western commercial images, she showed her embarrassment under such circumstance.