HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

Not only may one imagine that what is higher derives always and only from what is lower; one may imagine that – given the polarity and, more important, the ludicrousness of the world – everything derives from its opposite: day from night, frailty from strength, deformity from beauty, fortune from misfortune. 

                                                                                                               – Ladislav Klima

Miranda Fengyuan Zhang’s latest series of paintings draws direct inspiration from classical music composition, exploring the interplay between form and chance, order and chaos. She embodies these dualities through a calculated foundational pattern – the strips, along with a much looser, almost freehand-woven image on its upper layer. The foundational layer serves as the bedrock, acting as a steadfast framework. The upper layer bursts forth with variation and negotiation, resulting in a mesmerizing, orderly, yet wildly free contrast. This construct carries myriad cultural and social weights, both ancient and contemporary. Whether it’s a set of landscapes, motifs, or an assemblage of color fields interrogating the stripes, the audience is invited to witness the dynamic dialogue in a realm of constant polarity and harmony.

The title of the show, “Variation on a Theme of Blue and Gray,” directly references an ancient music form dating back to the thirteenth century. Composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert used this specific music form to expand various ideas from a single motif. Through Zhang’s early education in classical piano, she views the weaving machine as an instrument itself. This inquiry explores the indeterminacy of weaving as a physical experience, juxtaposed with the regularity of machines. The weaving technique involves the coexistence of incompatible conceptual systems—domestic construction, celebrity culture, visual conspicuousness, or institutional critique—all of which are equally valid. The constraints and limits of weaving reflect this phenomenon within the picture plane, highlighting the sensual pleasure of polychromatic banded materials. The stripes draw attention through their prominence in our visual field and entertain the eye with their shifting patterns, combinations of color, and ocular effects.

Through ongoing exploration, rehearsal, and performance of weaving, using notations and instructions of warp and weft, Zhang formalizes the distinction between personal intention and formalist theory in her artistic expression. The instrumental indeterminacy of the weaving machine is used to perform in situations where the boundaries of the machinery process are experienced as ambiguous, fluid, reconfigurable, or undefinable by the artist. Her new series of paintings translates such situations into tangible forms, demonstrating how shimmer, colors, textures, and patterns of the material are integral to creating subjectivity. If the motif of stripes is about turning the personal into possession, Zhang’s work paradoxically suggests transforming the material into the personal through the conduit of meaning as use, allowing us to abandon control in the process.

– Yuan Fuca

Miranda Fengyuan Zhang has had solo shows at Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai; Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo/Brussels; Halsey McKay Gallery East Hampton; and Candice Madey Gallery, New York. Other exhibitions include Sea View, Los Angels; Galerie Marguoa, Paris; Massimo de Carlo, London; Clearing, New York/Los Angeles, and Chambers Fine Art Gallery. New York. She has been the recipient of the La Maison de l’Art Contemporain residency in Asilah, Morocco and the Arquetopia Foundation in Oaxaca, Mexico. She is represented by Halsey McKay Gallery.