Zhuang Hong Yi
Multicolour Flower, 2013
Sichuan, china
rice paper, acrylic paint,
varnish on canvas
70 x 90 cm
Zhuang Hong Yi’s Multicolour Flower is a luminous celebration of nature’s excess - unapologetically bright, obsessively crafted, and impossible to ignore. Drawing from traditional Chinese techniques, Zhuang transforms delicate rice paper into sculptural blooms, each one hand-painted, folded, and coaxed into place with near-meditative focus. Up close, it’s all detail and discipline; from a distance, it’s a wave of colour that seems to breathe. Every petal catches the light differently, creating a surface that flickers and shifts as you move - like a flowerbed with secrets.
This isn’t just a painting. It’s a hybrid form, somewhere between textile, topography, and technicolour daydream. The materials are humble, but the effect is extravagant: a riot of texture and pigment, held in perfect tension. Zhuang’s work is rooted in ritual but flirts with spectacle - and Multicolour Flower makes no attempt to be subtle. It’s beauty dialled up. A garden gone rogue. A reminder that joy, when meticulously constructed, can feel like a quiet kind of rebellion.