Premio Combat Prize

Artwork description:
Influenced by pop culture and social media platforms, Xi Zhang mines material for his art from what he refers to as “twenty-first century DNA”--Facebook, video games, advertisements, and Google searches. He combines an eye-popping palette with traditional oil painting techniques to examine how modern identities and relationships become disjointed in our frenetic, digital world. Zhang’s creations comment on the mind-altering effects of contemporary society’s addiction to technology, echoing the psychedelic art of the 1960s.
Xi Zhang’s bio
Xi Zhang, was born in 1984 in China and live and work in Milwaukee and Denver, U.S.Zhang’s work had notable shows including Song Zhuang Multimedia Art Exhibition at Song Zhuang Art Museum in Beijing (2006) URRA in Argentina (Buenos Aires 2012) Ornaments at White House (2012) and Biennale of America in U.S. (2013). His work was featured on media as CNN (2011), Art ltd Magazine(2012), PBS (2013), NPR (2013), and Juxtapoz Magazine (2014). Zhang also was awarded emerging artist of year (2008), The Pathmaker (2011), Top twelve artists under age 35 (2012 ), and The Catherine Doctorow Prize in Contemporary painting (Nominated 2015) .