One Second
Zhao Zhao
赵赵
Production date
2018
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
200 x 300 cm
Notes
Zhao Zhao’s ‘One Second’ series of ten drawings and paintings form a meditative examination of the mysterious and elastic nature of time. The drawings capture an ephemeral moment: Zhao Zhao took a handful of ten pencils and drew continuous lines with them, fluid markings across the paper made quickly in just one second. They appear spiky, sharp and almost violent, reminiscent of the scratches of ice skates onto a pristine, unmarked ice rink. One imagines the almost unbearable sound of chalk scraping and squeaking on an old-fashioned blackboard. These works make a knowing reference to how twentieth century Abstract Expressionists, in turn informed by Surrealist and Dada theories of chance, sought to enter states where the subconscious mind would guide mark-making. They also reference the Chinese belief that an artist or calligrapher’s gestural mark-making was an expression of their essential ‘qi’ – their breath, or spirit. Zhao Zhao then turned these spontaneous drawings into highly deliberate, controlled oil paintings in which the random, scribbly nature of the pencilled lines was meticulously rendered in the unforgiving medium of oil paint. The paintings simulate spontaneity and speed, but in fact are created with slow, deliberate precision, recalling Roy Lichtenstein’s ironic 1965-66 series of apparently gestural expressionist brush marks, replicated with cold, flat deliberation as if screen-printed. The process of turning the drawings into paintings took about a year: Zhao Zhao thus spent twelve months contemplating ten seconds.
Accession number
2018.011