Ireland Touches Beijing: A Mutual Understanding of the Tree
April 18th, 2025
Better late than never…
Last spring, I was invited to attend the opening of Trees — The Great Connectors at Red Gate Gallery by my colleague David Brubaker, who spoke about duo show between Irish native, Niamh Cunningham who has been based in China for quite some time now and Zhang Zhaohui one of China’s well known abstract artists and calligraphers. Both artists explore the realm of nature; for Cunningham acrylic or multimedia painting with film, for Zhang photography and calligraphy.
Electric Fronds, Acrylic on Canvas, 120 × 100 cm, 2023
I remember walking into the gallery surrounded by diplomats, poets, filmmakers, and art enthusiasts which were all brought together for the two artists’ collaboration. Looking through the show there was a contrast between Cunningham’s large scaled paintings and Zhang’s dynamic monochrome calligraphy which point to Chinese motifs and analogies.
Naimh’s colorful depictions of nature in the show take the viewer into a world of majestic giant trees and vibrant green scapes as if they were looking towards the sky and encapsulated by a large forest. This inverse fisheye lens view within her paintings is vibrant and two diementional yet and still supporting the viewers entry into nature.
Zhang’s practice has spanned many decades and is a combination of calligraphy and ink painting in a contemporary context. The exhibition included the photo work Stay Together (2010) which captures a mirror material cut in the shape of the male and female symbols normally found on public bathroom doors. Both cutouts were placed in the middle of a lake. Because of the reflective material of the cutouts, they both stand together mirroring to the camera the view of serene mountains, forestry and surrounding lake. The work immediately has the impression on the viewer as a oneness with nature and a necessity to not put ourselves in a caste system to separate from it. Another photo work, Tree in the Woods (2024), documents Zhang’s dypthic of three ink painted panels installed on three separate trees in the woods of Massechusetts where he recently spent some time on residency. Again, he works with his own creations within nature pairing the manmade with as the Chinese would say 天做 or God made. Comparatively making the large scale production of industry goods small when engulfed in the bigger natural world.
Zhang Zhaohui, David A. Brubaker, Brian Wallace, and Niamh Cunningham (left to right) standing to the right of Zhang’s multi-paneled ink painting Tree (2024).
Zhang’s larger than life calligraphy was most prominent in the exhibition, with floor to ceiling works that displayed varying hues of black ink paintings. The largest being, Tree (2024), a massive multi panel piece which when put together spell out the character 森林 （shen lin) which is mandarin for “forest”. The scaling achievement must have been at least nine to ten feet and hovered over all of us. Zhang mentioned that his works are deeply influenced by the natural world and he hopes that it can bring us closer to it. Although, there is an abstraction to the work that the viewer must sit with, Chinese attendees immediately understood its meaning speaking at length about its relevance to the traditional proverb: 前人栽树后人乘凉 (Qian ren she you ran sheng Jing) which translates to “old generation plant tree and younger take the shade”. The proverb means to make a fortune for the offspring. In his own way, Zhong’s work is an expression of leaving his appreciation of nature as a fortune for those that comes after him.
Although the larger colorful acrylic paintings were captivating, I was pulled in by Niamh’s work which uses sugar. The Sucrose Series, plays with a sugar film, and coats the underlying landscapes in a chrysalis leaving the viewer with a foggy coat that is textured and snow like.
I approached Cunningham for comment and she was able to explain the work much better than I will attempt:
“The Sucrose Series is a mixed media photographic process. The process uses photography as the through line and involves a fresh print of my favorite nature scenes around Beijing on cotton paper. The areas for sucrose 'Curved Path' is small Willow glade in Olympic park and the sucrose work 'Ice Willow' the original image was taken Winter time at the Summer Palace where people were playing with ice sleighs and ice bikes on the lake. A layer of hot sugar is placed over this pulling colour particles from the printed surface into the sugar mixture .The mixture dries and starts to crystalise which pushes the color particles (which were in solution) a little bit , thus color continues to move even after the creation event .I take dozen of images during the crystalization process capturing the changes over 3- 5 months and I consider the process prints are the actual artwork. The Sucrose Series can be seen as a metaphor for our biosphere where so many feedbacks are happening (with pollution, Nitrogen and Carbon cycles ect...) it is difficult to understand what addition is causing which effect . This was my first attempt to address environmental changes in her art making .”
From this process which delves into experimentation, separation, and fragmenting the image, comes a body of work that seamlessly deals with time, joy, and an affinity for the world that surrounds us — specific to Beijing.
Cunningham’s Tree Stories films were also on view which documented her time surveying multitudes of communities all over the world about their relationship to the surrounding world.
Curved Path Blue (Original Sucrose), Sucrose Mixed Media, 29 x 50 cm (2020)
I gathered from the show both artists’ emotional and maybe even spiritual connection to some of the largest breathing plants we have on earth, and the lively athmosphere of this spontaneous one weekend show was something to marvel as it flew in and out of Red Gate Gallery’s doors. Both Cunningham and Zhang conceptualized their work in a multitude of methods which were not only engaging in sight, but simply speak the language of people who seek to have a greater connection to our tall wooded friends.
Trees — The Great Connectors was on view November 2, 2024 - November 3rd, 2025.
