Jichi Zhang 张继弛(b. 2001, Hohhot, China) is an artist currently based in London. His practice spans sculpture, installation, and material experimentation, often working with transparent film, tape, architectural coverings, and other provisional industrial materials. Through gestures of covering, suspending, holding, fixing, and relocating, his work examines how objects are protected, exposed, maintained, and made dependent on the systems that support them.
Zhang’s practice is concerned with the conditions through which an artwork comes into being: the wall that holds it, the language that describes it, the institution that frames it, and the temporary structures that allow it to remain visible. Rather than treating sculpture as a fixed object, his work approaches it as a fragile arrangement of relations between material, space, maintenance, display, and interpretation. Protection, in his work, is often unstable; it can preserve, conceal, delay, or reveal the vulnerability of what it holds.
He is currently studying MA Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, in the Sculpture area. He received his BA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, graduating with First-Class Honours, and previously studied at Universität der Künste Berlin. He has also undertaken Level 7 study at St George’s, University of London, receiving Distinction.
Zhang has presented solo exhibitions including if at Chinese American Arts Council / Gallery 456, New York, and am at Absent Gallery, Guangzhou. His work has been included in exhibitions at Saatchi Gallery, the National Gallery, Central Saint Martins, Sol de Paris, Three Zeros Contemporary Art Centre, The Handbag Factory, The Koppel Project Station, and other spaces across the UK, Europe, the United States, and China. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include projects in Tokyo, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou.