Reality and Surreality, Major Exhibition of Contemporary Painting
Group Exhibition Today Art Museum ,Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning

Artists: Zhai Liang 翟倞 | 

“Surrealism” was first introduced to China in the 1930s and then quietly took root in the soil of Chinese art. It was not until the 1980s, however, that it more visibly permeated the trajectories of Chinese contemporary art. Today, “Surrealism” has long gone beyond the confines of stylistic categorization, while it can no longer be simply equated with the avant-garde, it continues—through its departure from rationalism and its disruption of everyday logic—to shape the painting practices of a new generation of artists.

In the present context, “New Surrealist” painting in China reflects contemporary concerns and anxiety emerging amid economic fluctuations, environmental crises, shifting social discourses, information overload, and rapid advances in AI-driven digital technologies. At the same time, surrealist modes of creation and pictorial language enable artists to move beyond the constraints of both reality and stylistic orthodoxy, opening up freer forms of expression. It is through such practices, in turn, that Surrealism itself continues to exert a sustained influence within an increasingly complex and multidimensional field of Chinese contemporary painting.

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