Firstsite is delighted to host a major solo exhibition by the celebrated Chinese artist Zhang Enli.

The centerpiece of the presentation will be a site-specific intervention that will span the entirety of the gallery’s 140-metre curving wall. This monumental ‘Space Painting’ will depict an imaginary forestscape, and will be created by the artist over a 10-day period before the show opens on March 11, 2017.

The work, which will remain at Firstsite for one year before being ‘unmade’, will transform the gallery’s white walls with swathes of pulsating colour that will be washed, scrubbed and stroked into place with expressive brushstrokes. The sheer scale of this spatial environment draws the viewer deeper into the painting itself, inviting the beholder into the aesthetic world of the artist as they follow the movements that he took when creating the work.

Zhang Enli photo: Neil D’Arcy Jones