Ren Zi focuses on the role memory plays in our sense of identity & the world. This comes from having majored in psychology & the sense of loss growing up in a country whose past has all but been erased. Far from nostalgic, his psychic landscapes (or psi-scapes, as he calls them) are open-ended stories. They juxtapose scenes & figures from personal memory, history & mythology as invitation to weave your own narrative. The "topographies of loss" series presented by JADA ART acknowledges that while we wish to freeze memories "as they are", this is a futile enterprise. After all, memory is a construct that changes as we go through life. Here, the airborn jellyfish, the artist's alter ego, unable to even hold onto a solid image of itself, changes form & patterning from one scene to the next reflects this impossibility.

His other series, "7 elements", draws upon the metaphorical elements that make up his personal cosmology to depict the transformational nature of memories. Returning to art after having spent his working life in the business of words, Ren Zi channels the mutative influences of popular culture, science & the multi-cultural strains that sift through the consciousness of his country.




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