AMSTERDAM.- Celebrating the 60th Birthday of Zhuang Hong Yi, SmithDavidson Gallery opened the Amsterdam cultural season with a solo show of the renowned artist presenting an overview of the iconic Landscape and Flowerbed series and in doing so SDG shows the evolution and variety of this artist, and the distinct signature Zhuang Hong Yi has developed over his career spanning almost 25 years since his first exhibition at the Groninger Museum in Amsterdam back in 1999. During the long standing friendship of well over 15 years with David Smith & Gabrielle Davidson the work by Zhuang has been increasingly recognized by an international private & institutional collector base for its originality and strong energy.

Born in 1962 in the Sichuan province, Zhuang Hong-yi is one of China's most influential artists. It is his combination of Chinese background and European influence that marks Zhuang's work. Embracing his present without losing his past, he attempts to define a sense of self that exists between the two and enacts this personal struggle visually, vacillating between phases of controlled planning, emotional gesture and careful editing that result in works of beauty, suprise, and curiosity. Characterised by daringly-bold colour palettes, Zhuang's sophisticated, repetitive, and precise floral motifs symbolize as a universal symbol of prosperity and optimism. He religiously works on this subject year after year, however, the result is not repetitive, but demonstrates his continuous refinement and experimentation between raw emotional expressions and precisely planned artistry.

Throughout the past decades Zhuang has achieved international acclaim. His sculptural paintings have featured in over a hundred solo exhibitions and group exhibtions worldwide including the Found Museum in Beijing, China, the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, the Ulm Museum in Germany, the Erarta Museum in Russia ans the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy, in 2013. Zhuang studied at the Sichuan College of Fine Arts in China and continued his education in Europe at the Minerva Academy in the Netherlands. As of today, Zhuang spends his time distributed at his studio in China and residence in Switzerland.