It's hard to clearly define if the paintings of Zhang Zikang are abstract or realistic. Zhang, director of the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), said his art style has constantly evolved over the course of his art career.

"I have always believed that abstraction and realism are derived from human cognition. For example, when we're able to recognize what we see, we think it is a realistic painting. If it goes beyond our visual cognition, or it's incomprehensible, it will be regarded as abstract," Zhang Zikang explained. "When we observe our world rationally, there are so many things that are beyond our recognition. But these in fact help to create a new space for art."

Zhang Zikang has been practicing traditional Chinese painting for many years. He learned realism at school, but he later realized it would be difficult to create his own style if he remained bound to tradition.

Fortunately, he entered the publishing industry after graduation, and then he worked in a number of art museums. Since 2004, Zhang has served as curator of the Today Art Museum, deputy curator of the National Art Museum of China, and is currently the director of the CAFA Art Museum. All of these experiences, which have helped broaden his perspective on art, have an indirect but substantial influence on his paintings.

"It looks as if I painted it with water and ink, but in fact, I used oil paints. It is mixed with oil and it's different from water and ink," said Zhang while introducing one of his most recent works. "Because water and ink have a more delicate visual effect, I wanted more direct and intense lines. So when I painted this way, the lines have a stronger effect."

In addition to combining oil-painting techniques with traditional Chinese painting methods, Zhang Zikang likes to mix various materials together, such as toners and various kinds of colloidal substances. "This is nothing new, as we can see blended gouache paintings, oil paintings, watercolor paintings, sketches and toners in Chagall's work," he said, referring to the early modernist Russian-French artist Marc Chagall.

In 2020, Zhang curated the first solo exhibition of Chagall's works in China. "This eclectic approach to materials does bring a novelty to our paintings," Zhang said, noting how innovative methods help artists break the rules. "I think a good artist must be willing to try something different," he added.

"Although I studied Western oil painting techniques, when my paintings are exhibited overseas, people always think they're artworks by a Chinese artist and that they are Eastern," Zhang recalled, "maybe it's in my blood."

Zhang Zikang believes the contemporary era demands constant innovation, that artists create new room for our imagination, and that our understanding of art is constantly expanding. "So art today, in terms of its function, stands for a kind of creativity," he noted.

When it comes to tradition and innovation, Chinese artists are constantly expanding the scope of their work through traditional art. They never stop thinking about the relationship between traditional art and the needs of the present. Zhang Zikang believes long-held customs will keep evolving through constant exchanges and self-improvement. He says that the significance of tradition relies on today's innovations forming the conventions of the future.