SHANG ZHEXING
尚哲星

Shang Zhexing  was born in 2000 in Henan, China. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Working primarily with graphite and charcoal on paper, he develops his images from fragments of the body, posture, implied physical tension, and forms that suggest human-made objects. These recognizable cues are not presented as fixed subjects, but are redirected into forms shaped by weight, resistance, and a sense of discord. His drawings do not prioritize visual clarity or narrative efficiency. Instead, they deliberately move away from those expectations. What concerns him is a kind of structural pressure—not emotional repression, but a tension produced by the way forms support, constrain, and interrupt one another. His images often carry a raw, almost invasive quality, as if forms are entering, breaking into, or occupying each other’s space. The monochrome range of graphite and charcoal draws attention to edges, density, overlap, and layering, while further delaying the possibility of immediate recognition. For Shang, drawing is not a way to describe a specific subject, but a process of testing how the contours and bends he keeps returning to can take shape in the image.

​

​

尚哲星，2000年出生于河南郑州，本科与研究生先后毕业于纽约视觉艺术学院和芝加哥艺术学院。他主要以铅与炭在纸上绘画。作品常从对身体局部、姿态、受力逻辑，或近似人造物的借用中展开；这些可被辨认的线索并不作为具体对象被呈现，而是被转化为一种带有重量、阻力与不协调感的组织方式。他的画面并不以视觉上的清晰或叙事效率为优先目标，而是有意识地偏离这些标准。他更关心的是一种结构性压力，这种压力并非情绪上的压抑，而是形体之间在支撑、牵制与干扰中形成的关系。作品中往往也带有某种原始的、近乎侵略性的状态，像是在彼此进入、打破或占据。铅与炭的单色把注意力集中到形体的边缘、密度、遮挡和层次上，也进一步削弱了图像被迅速识别的可能。对他来说，绘画不是针对某种具体事物的说明，而是从那些长期留在记忆里的轮廓与转折在纸面上重新寻找成立的方式。