Painting According to Method Zeng Hong, Xiao Bo, Dong Dawei

Painting According to Method

Artists: Zeng Hong, Xiao Bo, Dong Dawei

Duration: 2026.7.9 - 9.3

Address: 18-102, No.50 Moganshan Rd., Putuo District, Shanghai, China 200060

Ginkgo Space (Shanghai) is pleased to present Painting According to Method from July 9 to September 3, 2026, featuring the painting practices of Zeng Hong, Xiao Bo, and Dong Dawei.

The Chinese character fa (法) signifies both rule and method. For the three artists, it refers to a self-defined working principle—whether as a methodology or an ideological position. Against the proliferation of images, they no longer approach painting as a vehicle for representation or narrative, but turn instead to its language, materiality, and process. Method becomes integral to the work itself, while each painting is understood not as a predetermined end, but as a provisional state within an ongoing process.

Grounded in his experience of factory life and a sustained engagement with the political realities of his time, Zeng Hong gradually strips away figuration and narrative. Lines and planes of color generate highly geometric compositions, constructing spaces defined by structure and order. Within these restrained surfaces, he continues to pursue what he calls a “solid absolute spirit.”

Xiao Bo understands painting as a process unfolding through self-imposed procedures. In the Four Grids series, four panels are developed simultaneously according to a synchronized working mechanism. Repetition and synchronization dissolve narrative, allowing each work to become a record of the act of painting itself. His emphasis on order and rules ultimately points toward permanence and emptiness.

Dong Dawei approaches painting through the materiality of its medium. Beginning with the dot as a fundamental unit, he allows forms and colors to emerge organically through the inherent properties of marker ink. More recently, he has traced the origins of Chinese shan shui painting and Western fresco, using plaster and other materials as the physical foundation of the image. For Dong, the essence of painting lies in its materiality, and artistic practice responds not to subjective emotion, but to the material world.

The exhibition proposes a shared understanding of painting: painting is concerned first and foremost with method rather than image. Once painting is freed from the task of producing images, the act of painting itself once again becomes the enactment of fa.