Schoeni is delighted to present Zhang Lin Hai’s most recent solo exhibition since his much acclaimed museum show, Stunned Speechless, at Beijing’s Today Art Museum in 2008. The Fading Sun will open at Schoeni Main Gallery on 14 October 2010, featuring Zhang Lin Hai’s latest oil paintings that embody a fresh style and outlook yet keeping the core humanistic essence of his art. Born in Shanghai in 1963, Zhang Lin Hai was adopted by his foster parents and brought up in the small village of Wang Jin Zhuang, located in She County. Plagued by illnesses as a child, Zhang suffered from polio which left him with a crippled leg. In many ways, Zhang’s turbulent life is tied up by desolation and sorrow; he had witnessed the devastation of the Cultural Revolution through his foster parents; survived his many illnesses and failed operations, living in a predominantly unequal society as a disabled; relentlessly fought his way to higher education, graduating from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 1990; struggled through poverty and endured the hardships of a country boy in a big city etc… All his past struggles and sufferings, or rather, his fate, have shaped the principal character of his work, one that articulates intense inner tension and feelings of melancholy, fear, despair, need for escape, agony and isolation.