ILLUSTRATED:

Zhang Jian can be roughly categorized in to an impressionist when he first paints, and those paintings reflects two important features: the concern about language, and, life. Before Zhang there aren't too many artists could paint in an impressionism way., he paints in a humble way, his paintings are plain and natural, it's like he's not imitating impressionism, he was born to paint that way. But what Zhang truly wanted was to paint the sun, to paint the kind of light that shines, to paint the hope in life when he graduated from school, through the impressionism techniques he had proven his painting skills, just like his brilliant presentations in class.

After the 90's, the themes from his daily life gradually become the themes in most of his paintings, which is quite a change in the direction. Before that, the mainstream in China arts are political propaganda, a revolutionary realism, there aren't too much concerns about daily life. The contemporary art movement during the 80's was largely about the unsatisfactory towards daily life, it is the longing of western living standard and the lifestyle behind the pursue towards western masterpieces, and that kind of life seems to be unreachable during that time, therefore anxieties and conflicts are inevitable. Zhang Jian's paintings is about hope and reality, there are no criticism and plots in them, just plain daily lives. He created his arts through his feelings and his daily life, however China in the 90's was going through a big society change, therefore Zhang's paintings have a deeper meaning within.

"Houhai" is a series of Zhang's works; it is not about the sea, but anywhere in the world. In the early works in that series there are no sunshine in them, only the mist at dusk, like one standing on the crossroad of life hesitating, the solitude is endless, just like the ocean. In his recent "Snow" series, the snows in the picture weaved a dreamy scene, that elastic mood can be discovered, just like his early works in his career. Snows can be seen anywhere in these pictures, and Zhang put the word "dream" in most of the titles for those paintings, "Peter's Houhai Dream" one of them from the series. There is a spiritual connection from "Houhai" to "snow" series, even they are completely different, the kind of mist exists in both of the series, they don't talk about the attitude towards like Zhang's works, they have brought the reality into dreams.