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Leah Ke Yi Zheng On Painting as a Relational Phenomenon

Her recently closed multipart solo installation at the Renaissance Society in Chicago explored the convergence of paint, light, architecture and the I Ching in 64 works.

A painting, for Leah Ke Yi Zheng, is not an object but a dynamic phenomenon, always experienced in relation to its context. Her latest exhibition, which recently closed at the Renaissance Society in Chicago, featured a sequence of 64 paintings based on the hexagrams of the I Ching (Book of Changes), a foundational text in Chinese philosophy that reflects on the changing nature of existence, its transience and the necessity of embracing continuous evolution.

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When Observer met the artist during EXPO CHICAGO to walk through the show in its final days, Yi Zheng explained that, from the outset, she conceived it as a single, integrated work. The entire project was envisioned through a close dialogue with architecture, in which the paintings and the spatial environment are designed to operate as one system. At the beginning of every project, each painting starts with a strong conceptual construction, Yi Zheng explained. “In all of my works, there’s a conceptual beginning. Then, in the process of painting, I enter a different mindset, a kind of painting zone, which I think most painters share. It’s a place of intuition.”

Born and raised in the small rural city of Wuyishan, China, Yi Zheng originally came to the United States as a law student but later left that path to focus on the arts. Over time, particularly after this project, painting has become the central focus of her life and thinking, as the intensity and enthusiasm of her description of the work clearly show. Her process is deeply meditative, rooted in close contact with the work itself. A prolonged observation of light within a space, and a reflection on how it interacts with........

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