Skin Weave is a series that Zhang has been working on since his first solo exhibition in 2010 Self Portrait. Moving away from those who surround him daily, he has borrowed from the sketches of masters from different eras that he found inspiring, including Dürer, Baldung Grien, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Grünewald and Kollwitz. While the forms in his paintings remain very close to the original sketches, by ridding of elements such as their medium, style and era, leaving the form alone as basis, he then adds his own unique element, which is the hyper-realistic depiction of the texture of the skin, by doing so, Zhang has brought these forms to life through his own imagination, within his modernist visual context, creating a certain incoherency and absurdity in the final images.
“I just want to depict what my eyes can see – the veins under the skin, pores in various sizes and all kinds of dirt on the surface of the skin.” said Zhang while describing the series Skin Weave, “I weave the nerves, little by little, as though knitting a sweater, into a texture that is visually most akin to our skin”. On the surface, his act of painting might seem to be a straightforward representation of the most direct “truth” seen by the eyes, but there is much more within his subtle brushstrokes, in what he presents to the spectators is a truth that we would normally find difficulty in seeing and would perhaps unable to accept. We instinctually reject it because it forces us to see beyond looking and to not take what is in front of our eyes for granted, thus allowing us to actively question “reality”.