Yu Zhao

Yu Zhao's painting joins the movement of a contemporary literary art that seeks to deconstruct ideographism. However, "Yu Zhao, instead of breaking ideograms, goes back to their source [...] which is none other than the imprints of nature, of the flow of consciousness, formed by a brush vibrating with feeling." (Léon Vandermeersch).

Born in 1976 in Beijing, Yu Zhao attended preparatory courses at the Central School of Fine Arts and the Beijing Costume Institute for several years, acquiring a solid foundation in drawing and color. After studying French at the Beijing Institute of International Relations, Yu Zhao came to France to devote herself to painting, which attracted her like a vocation. 

At the University of Bordeaux III, the study of Fine Arts brought about a real cultural revolution in Yu Zhao's vision of art. Later, she obtained her doctorate at the University of Paris 8 after a passionate research on the terminology of pictorial art in ancient China. Indeed, it was in France that Yu Zhao rediscovered the painting and calligraphy of her native country, with Madame Peng-Tuan Keh Ming, whose successor she was at Paris-Ateliers between 2007 and 2010. 

The discovery of contemporary dance was decisive for her creative path. Since 2010, Yu Zhao has given herself entirely to her personal creation. Her process consists of a synthesis between the ink game from the Chinese tradition and the performance inspired by contemporary dance. Yu Zhao has chosen tempera - an ancestral and mythical technique in Western art - to paint in the manner of Chinese ink on thick paper (then mounted on canvas). With its gradations, textures and gestural forms - all in a premeditated play of full and empty - Yu Zhao's paintings invite us to travel through imaginary landscapes, always with an open meaning. The message is pictorial and the writing is about to be reborn.

Yu Zhao exhibits regularly in France and in China. She lives and works in Paris.