ArtDepot is honored to announce that artist Zeng Hao's solo exhibition "Being" has officially opened on August 31, 2025, featuring over ten easel paintings created by the artist between 2021 and 2025.

The extension will last until September 24, 2025.

This solo exhibition presents Zeng Hao's work since his 2022 solo exhibition "Three Trees, Two Cups, One Person" at ArtDepot. Compared to his previous exhibition three years ago, the selection of works in this exhibition focuses on Zeng Hao's constant alteration, destruction, and experimentation within his paintings, attempting to use the exhibition title "In" to refer to this constant renewal and generation of states.Zeng Hao's work has been included in international biennials, including the São Paulo Biennale (2002), the Venice Biennale (2009), and the Busan Biennale (2017). Critics such as Wu Hung, Li Xianting, Huang Zhuan, and Huang Du have written about his work.

Many have noted two shifts in Zeng Hao's artistic path. The first occurred in 1995, when he gradually moved away from "New Generation" style painting and began creating works known as "Little Figure Painting." Critic Li Xianting described it this way: he disassembled images from everyday life and relocated them on a two-dimensional plane, freeing people and objects from familiar subordination. 

The second shift began roughly with his 2006 solo exhibition at the Shanghai Gallery of Art and became more pronounced in "Midsummer," curated by Wu Hung in 2010. Wu Hung believes that Zeng Hao's changes are "more internal and coherent—not independent of the outside world, but rather a dialogue with the outside world through the evolution of his own language."

But perhaps we shouldn't view Zeng Hao solely in terms of phases. We should also understand his consistent pursuit: a rejection of formulaicity and a wariness of conventionally accepted "completeness."

His changes are not intermittent but continuously permeate the growth of each painting. He doesn't predetermine a final effect, nor does he deliberately strive for a certain "finish." Instead, through repeated application and revision, he allows the painting to gradually develop its own language. He offers clear expressions while also actively leaving unresolved areas—transitions between colors are intentionally blurred, some forms hover between figurative and abstract, and spatial arrangements appear random yet contain a rhythm. These uncertainties are precisely the entrances he reserves for viewing.

Stepping into his studio, one finds his paintings seemingly in a perpetual state of "unfinished." Multiple easels stand side by side, as if he is working alongside a collection of paintings. Magazines, paints, and water cups are scattered around, and a palette, approximately three square meters, sits in the center, its layers of pigments bearing the marks of time. Dozens of paintings are arrayed against the wall, some with only a light base, while others have been repeatedly painted, scraped, and covered, leaving the underlying colors faintly visible. There are even drafts or works from decades ago, awaiting revision.

Even when conversing with friends, his gaze often wanders from painting to painting, comparing and pondering. For him, creation isn't about completing a single work linearly, but rather the simultaneous growth and interaction of multiple works. A splash of pale purple in one painting might suddenly lead him to realize that a warm white in another isn't quite right.

This is a process of constant revision, destruction, and experimentation. However, his "destruction" isn't driven by emotion, but rather a calm, almost necessary "negation." He resists premature "pleasing to the eye" and is wary of easily accepted "completeness." He allows the painting to gradually develop its own language through repeated adjustments. Many works take months, even two or three years to create.

Even if depicting the same forest, the work can undergo significant changes at different stages—the composition, color palette, imagery, even the tree species, arrangement, and season—everything is subject to constant adjustment. Even after a painting appears finished, or even published, he may still revise it. The color of the ground, the layers of the sky, the proportions of the space, the density of the trees... For Zeng Hao, a painting is always in a state of "being," a living, breathing reality. It is through this constant revision that he practices his rejection of formalism.

"No one knows the outcome of a creation, and scientists can't accurately predict the end point. If the outcome were already known, what would there be to explore? I don't have any purpose. My paintings merely represent a process, a constant renewal of self-awareness. Constantly breaking through brings at least a sense of excitement—this process is the freedom of creation."

"Being" is both an action and a state. It's not an arrival, but a process of becoming. It's the artist's physical presence—every stroke of paint, every covering, and every scrape; it's also the spiritual "now"—the white, marks, and gray on the wall become metaphors for the process of "being" itself.