Ping Zheng is a painter who attended the Summer 2012 program. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in June 2014 and is currently studying for her MFA study in Rhode Island School of Design.
Ping Zheng is a painter who attended the Summer 2012 program. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in June 2014 and is currently studying for her MFA study in Rhode Island School of Design.Tell us a bit about you
I started my art training at the age of 13 in Shan Xi province, where I was born and raised. My first introduction to art was through drawing from observation, life drawings and the still life. I moved to Beijing where I studied for two years and it was there that I was introduced to Western art – albeit a Chinese take on Western art!
At the age of 18 I left China and travelled to the UK to study for a foundation course at Camberwell College in London. I graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in June 2014 and am currently studying for my MFA in Painting at Rhode Island School of Design.
Tell us a little about your work
My work changed and developed greatly over the five years studying in London. At first it took me a while to get used to
the studio led education where I could do whatever I wanted; after years of working from observation I decided I would work without source material to develop the most direct line from thought to painting.
My paintings started out being an imagined realism; painting the world how I thought it to look. Over time the way I painted took precedence, the subject grew less important, the plasticity of the paint, the surface of the canvas and the brushwork took centre stage and the depiction of landscape became obfuscated by the very paint that painted it. Impressionism is still an important touchstone for me as I see it as the first paintings that are about the act of seeing and not about seeing the obscured.
The paintings that I have been doing now are concentrating on the act of viewing, or seeing the effect of the phenomenon of the break up of sight; heat distortion, sun reflecting on water, where what you are left with is not what you are looking at but the synethetic effect of light which makes you aware of the act of looking.
Do you feel that your work as changed or developed in any way since attending the Rome Art program?
Certainly, It helped, because there was intensive study schedule and I traveled a lot while in Italy, not only I learnt how to observe the environment, but also I really broadened my horizon for different things.
What’s next for Ping?
As the old saying goes the best way to predict one’s future is do best at present and take action. I only can be sure that I am in the art world.