Ode to creativity

The show Nobody Knows Where features photographs and a paper collage by Christopher Doyle, and paintings and installations by Zhang Enli. Photos [Photo provided to China Daily]

Zhang, 50, is widely exhibited internationally. His painting subjects are items of daily use, such as an empty bucket and a piece of tiled floor.

"The subject is often unimportant," the artist says about his paintings. "It's the background and composition that matters."

Zhang turned the entire hall on the second floor of the museum building into the show's main display area, where walls made from cardboard boxes enclose dozens of screens of varying sizes that play the videos by Doyle.

Zhang has created a framework for his videos, according to Doyle.

Both artists are mature and have distinctive styles of their own, Yeh, the curator, says. "You might think you know about their art, but you will find the exhibition quite different from your perception."

Zhang hopes that collaborating with Doyle and the curators will be artistically fulfilling, he says.

"I want to establish colorful and variable connections and interactions, rather than mixing and combining different things together to become one."

Zhang is reticent when compared with Doyle's outgoing personality. Being a painter, Zhang spends most of his time working by himself, while in Doyle's line of work, there are always groups of people with whom he needs to interact daily.