The Skin of Truth : Fly to Baku Art Weekend

30 October - 30 December 2026

  • JD Malat Gallery is pleased to present The Skin of Truth, in collaboration with Fly to Baku Art Weekend, at the iconic Heydar Aliyev Center. 


    The exhibition features Beijing based artist Zhang Ji, whose work merges ancient symbolism and a contemporary sensibility, in a practice that reconsiders what painting can be. The series explores sacred architecture across cultures, transforming architectural motifs into intricate abstract compositions. Using a syringe rather than a brush, he builds dense, meticulously layered surfaces that evoke spirituality, history and collective memory, reimagining the enduring relationship between the past and the present.

  • Zhang Ji, Ultima20233, 2023 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    ZHANG JI The Skin of Truth 114, 2022 Oil on canvas 60 x 80 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    ZHANG JI Ultima20231, 2023 Oil on canvas 146 x 151 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    ZHANG JI The Skin of Truth 202211, 2022 Oil on canvas 200 x 200 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    ZHANG JI The Skin of Truth 20232, 2023 Oil on canvas 97 x 101 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Zhang Ji, Ultima20233, 2023
  • Between Past and Present
    ZHANG JI, The Skin of Truth 20238, 2023, Oil on canvas, 150 x 150 cm

    Between Past and Present

    Beijing-based artist Zhang Ji’s The Skin of Truth brings together ancient symbolism and contemporary sensibility, reconsidering the possibilities of painting. Begun in 2011, the series grew from a childhood fascination with decorative church reliefs into an extensive exploration of religious architecture across cultures. Mosques, synagogues, churches, Hindu and Buddhist temples provide the foundations for his abstract compositions. Through travel, photography and drawing, Zhang gathers architectural details and motifs, transforming them into a visual language shaped by history, ritual and collective memory. His paintings explore how cultural traditions continue to inform contemporary experience.

  • Repetition as Ritual

    Repetition as Ritual

    At the heart of Zhang’s practice is a radical rethinking of painting’s material possibilities. Replacing the conventional brushstroke with a syringe, he patiently applies paint to canvas, building intricate surfaces that evoke the sculptural qualities of bas-relief. Patterns drawn from sites including Córdoba’s Great Mosque, Granada’s Alhambra and Seville’s historic palaces are repeated, fragmented and transformed into compositions of colour, geometry and rhythm. The resulting works move between solidity and ephemerality, image and object. Their seemingly weightless surfaces reveal, upon closer inspection, an extraordinary density of material, gesture and labour.

  • The Consciousness of Creation
    ZHANG JI, The Skin of Truth 113, 2022, Oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm

    The Consciousness of Creation

    Repetition allows Zhang’s motifs to transcend their original cultural and religious contexts, becoming fragments of a shared visual language. In Ultima, the architectural references recede further as colour, rhythm and material emerge as independent forces. Across both series, Zhang shifts attention from what painting represents to the experience it creates, inviting a more contemplative encounter. Each work exists independently while contributing to a wider network of visual correspondences. Together, the paintings transform historical memory into a contemporary language, exploring how images endure, how meaning evolves and how traces of the past continue to inhabit the present.

  • ZHANG JI (B. 1978, CHINA)

    ZHANG JI (B. 1978, CHINA)

    A contemporary minimalist painter known for creating rhythmic raised surfaces inspired by architectural repetition. His restrained visual vocabulary produces quiet, meditative works rooted in harmony and spatial balance.