Close-up of Zhang Ruyi as she stands on a green stairway

Zhang Ruyi

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Zhang Ruyi brushing some sculpted objects in her studio
Close-up of Zhang Ruyi as she stands on a green stairway

Zhang Ruyi

“We will all be disciplined by the world, yet we can choose the way we are going to be disciplined.”

Harmonies of concrete and organic matter

Zhang questions everything. Her intuitive mixed-media practice juxtaposes materials to reframe ideas of everyday life. Exploring the relationship between personal identity and the urban landscape, her central motif – cacti – functions as an unlikely self-portrait. Meditating on the effects of rapid urbanisation, Zhang creates subversive, and quietly surreal interior displays in concrete. By hand-casting cement with a mould, Zhang enshrines the quintessential construction material in plant form. She also uses ceramic grid tiles, an architectural pattern that frequently features in Chinese urban...

Bio

Zhang Ruyi was born in 1985 in Shanghai, China, where she continues to live and work.

Accolades

Ruyi received the Creative M50 Young Artist Award in 2012, the YISHU 8 Creative Young Artist Award five years later, and was nominated for the Frieze London Artist Award in 2018.

Did you know?

A recurring cactus motif in the artist's work acts as a symbolic self-portrait for her experiences of struggling as an early career, female artist – and the prickly exterior they foster.


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