HONGRU ZHANG

Hongru Zhang

Installation View

Title: Embodied Form II

Year: 2024

Medium: Steel, Bronze and Latex

Dimension: L40cm x W24cm x H8cm

Title: Embodied Form I

Year: 2024

Medium: Steel, Bronze and Latex

Dimension: L40cm x W30cm x H10cm

“Embodied Form I& II” plays on the idea of skin, bone and metal. The skin covers the bone and in this case the bone grows out in a circular hug whilst the skin unfolds naturally into the bones structure. Metal, mirroring the strength of bone. is transformed through forging and welding, from cold rigidity to dynamic vitality. Quoting the process of decay and regeneration within the body and the natural process of death and decay within the human body. This piece touches on the weakness of the human body and the need for spiritual transcendence. It is at once fragile and strong.

“Boundless Flesh” is about the gradual and inevitable takeover of the human body. Bones, skin and form are changing in an inseparable whole, where each has its own beauty, but the indivisibility of the process makes its beauty apparent. The piece brings up the question of vulnerability and strength, where bones are giving support and skin answers with movement. This tension is between the idea of fixity and becoming. The body is not stable, it is always becoming. With that in mind, the piece questions what is it that we become and how can we withstand?

Title: Boundless Flesh

Year: 2024

Medium: Steel, Plaster, Fabric and Latex

Dimension: L130cm x W116cm x H112cm

“Beyond the Body” is about the gradual and inevitable takeover of the human body. Bones, skin and form are changing in an inseparable whole, where each has its own beauty, but the indivisibility of the process makes its beauty apparent. The piece brings up the question of vulnerability and strength, where bones are giving support and skin answers with movement. This tension is between the idea of fixity and becoming. The body is not stable, it is always becoming. With that in mind, the piece questions what is it that we become and how can we withstand?

Title: Beyond the Body

Year: 2025

Medium: Steel and Latex

Dimension: L70cm x W50cm x H80cm

Title: Beneath The Body

Year: 2025

Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex

Dimension: L115cm x W70cm x H215cm

“Beneath The Body” provides us with a humanoid figure that is at part and part of the familiar and the un-familiar. Its scale and attitude invokes our broad understanding of the human body, but its skin and interior has been stretched, contorted and deformed by pulling and growing. There seems to be a number of pressures pushing, resisting and responding to each other. The forms are not anatomical, but more of a ‘warwick’ – a place where organic and synthetic pressure deform, intertwine and evolve. Inhabiting the body is usually a sufficiently stable relation, here it is left for you to consider.

Title: Beneath The Body

Year: 2025

Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex

Dimension: L115cm x W70cm x H215cm

“Growth I & II” continues with this examination of the body as a state of constant growth and mutation, drawing attention to the subtle changes taking place inside the body and the new states that arise. Blooming skeletal structures and organ-like alien forms grow slowly, ambiguously, transcending the natural/grotesque boundary. These unsettling hybrid forms refer to the fluid and indeterminate states of identity and existence. The tension here is not violent, but in the unknown quality of this slow proliferation, which makes us aware of how we relate to our bodies in a state of vulnerability and reconstruction, such that the living is multiple and complex.

Title: Growth I

Year: 2025

Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex

Dimension: L28cm x W26cm x H18cm

Title: Growth II

Year: 2025

Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex

Dimension: L20cm x W20cm x H12cm