Zhu Jinshi began creating abstract works in the late 1970s. In order to exhibit in an "official" capacity, he joined the Stars (Xingxing), a group of Chinese artists that included Ai Weiwei and Ma Desheng, and participated in their seminal Beijing exhibition in 1979. At Art13, Zhu Jinshi's work was represented alongside another major Chinese abstract artist, Su Xiaobai. The work of both artists attempts to illustrate that Chinese abstract has been a major, undiscovered force in contemporary art.
"Zhu Jinshi and Su Xiaobai are radically different artists, yet each exemplifies the essence of contemporary Chinese abstract painting," stated abstract art expert Paul Moorhouse, former curator at Tate Britain and now Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London, who visited the artists' studios last year said. "Working spontaneously, Zhu creates impossibly dense, sensuous fields of colour. Su develops his paintings patiently, slowly refining their exquisite, veneered surfaces. This profound feeling for evocative materials, and their shared emphasis on creating an abstract physical reality, is entirely distinctive — and completely compelling."
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