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The Crown: Ascent II

The Crown: Ascent II

$3,935.00

At first glance, The Crown: Ascent II radiates bold, joyful energy, inviting viewers into a world of dynamic complexity. Against a striking teal background, the crown structure blossoms into an expressive, textured form of deep pink and cream.

Swarming within and beneath this captivating form are countless figures, engaged in a spirited, continuous climb. Beneath the playful aesthetic lies a profound visual reflection on human endeavor. It reframes the concept of modern ambition not as a struggle, but as a fascinating collective journey, blending deep social commentary with striking modern appeal.

The Details:

  • Medium: Original Oil Painting on Premium Cotton-Linen Canvas
  • Dimensions: 35.4 x 35.4 in / 90 x 90 cm (Round Format)
  • Frame: Unframed stretched canvas, ready to hang
  • Edition: Unique, one-of-a-kind artwork
  • Authenticity: Includes a Certificate of Authenticity

Curator's Note: Retaining the signature round canvas, this piece serves as a dynamic window into a vibrant, expanding ecosystem. The rich, sculptural textures and striking hues create a captivating focal point, perfect for modern, high-end spaces that seek both bold energy and compelling storytelling.

Artist

Zhang Yibing

Beijing, China

Zhang Yibing is a Beijing-born painter whose work holds Chinese classical iconography and contemporary figuration in deliberate tension. Trained at the School of Fine Arts, Suzhou University, and a graduate of the Advanced Oil Painting Research Program at the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts under the mentorship of Lei Bo, he works in oil and mixed media across expansive series — Blooming Flowers, Crown, Celestial Realm, Non-Landscape — building surfaces where ancient symbols and present-day sensibility collide without resolution. Before devoting himself fully to painting, Zhang earned recognition as one of China's leading fashion photographers, a practice that sharpened his command of light, surface, and the charged relationship between subject and gaze. His paintings have been exhibited at the National Art Museum of China and are held in private collections internationally.
Artist statement

Each painting is a path. On that path, I meet my truest self.

My work moves between two currents I have never wanted to separate: the inherited weight of Chinese visual culture — its mythologies, its classical poetry, its ancient symbols — and the immediate texture of contemporary life. I work in oil, layered with mixed media, building surfaces that hold history and feeling simultaneously.

The motifs that recur across my canvases — flowers at the edge of excess, animals in their sovereign strangeness, figures caught between intimacy and solitude, celestial realms pressing against the ordinary — are not decorative choices. They are questions about what endures. The taotie, that ancient devouring face, shares space with women in quiet afternoon light. Don Quixote rides through a landscape that could be dynastic China or somewhere entirely invented. I am drawn to these collisions: the moment a classical image meets a contemporary gaze and neither one prevails.

My years in fashion photography taught me that a picture is fundamentally a decision about what to hold still. I choose to hold still the moments of beauty that feel most precarious — flowers at peak bloom, the charged silence between two people, the threshold between the earthly and whatever lies beyond it. To paint is to insist that these moments are worth the attention.

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