Zhao Duan
Née en 1981 à Shenyang, province de Liaoning, entre Pékin, la Corée et la Russie. Durant son enfance, elle prend des cours de dessin, de danse, de violon et de théâtre. Elle étudie à l’Université de Shenyang, option peinture à l’huile. Depuis 2005, Zhao Duan vit en France. Elle étudie à l’École d’art du Havre, puis aux Beaux-Arts de Toulouse. Ses œuvres sont présentes dans des collections privées et publiques prestigieuses, notamment celles du Mac Val.
Zhao Duan (b. 1981 in Shenyang, China) creates artworks that intimately link the body and the passage of time. Many of Zhao’s works begin with singular actions that are repeated and elaborated upon over time and finally culminate into finished artworks. “I paint with speed, and time is transformed into shapes,” says Zhao. After completing her undergraduate studies in oil painting at the Shenyang University School of Fine in China, Zhao moved to France to pursue her postgraduate studies at the Le Havre Art School, the Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, and the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris (where she is currently based). Zhao’s performance works play with the ephemerality of performance itself along with repetitive movements, emphasizing the transformation of the body into a tool within Zhao’s practice. For her, the body is an essential channel of emotions, ideas, and outside influences that she scrutinizes to create unpredictably nuanced compositions.
