Zhang Ji was born in 1978, in Shandong, China. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Mural Painting from Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008, and through his works, he attempts to cultivate an engaging dialogue between painting and religious architecture.

Created using a syringe to patiently apply as much as 120 tubes at 170 millilitres per tube onto the canvas, his works often resemble bas-relief sculptures, with the works modulating between composition and decomposition, and sturdiness and ephemerality. Referencing motifs from religious architecture—specifically mosques, synagogues, and cathedrals in Europe and the Middle East—he creates intricate patterns that are replicated across the canvas. He intends his works to serve as an extended meditation to 21st century viewers of how the visual vocabulary of religion and religious architecture still speaks to the vast and fertile recesses of our collective imagination.

Zhang Ji lives and works in Beijing, China.