Introduction
Ota Fine Arts Tokyo is delighted to present IT’S ORDINARY, BUT…, the first solo exhibition in Japan by Zhao Yao (b. 1981, China). Zhao is an important Chinese conceptual artist of the 80s generation that works across painting, installation, photography, video and performance. With a consistently rigorous conceptual approach, he has attracted the attention of curators and has been selected to participate in the Thailand Biennale 2025 as well as a historic contemporary art biennale in the United States, upcoming in 2026. In this exhibition, paintings will be shown at Ota Fine Arts in the His body of work is about building a connection between lived experiences and artistic experiences, or mobilizing both types of experiences to create the work. Audiences are often compelled to activate their complex sensory system to ponder materiality, form and the meaning of every present detail while relating what they see, feel, touch or hear to daily encounters.
This viewing room unpacks the origins and conceptual structure of Zhao’s representative series A Painting of Thought. The works on view at Piramide Building, at first glance, appear to be paintings composed of glossy acrylic shapes—reminiscent of plastic toys—arranged like puzzles. Yet when we trace the process hidden beneath their surfaces, we begin to realize, as the title A Painting of Thought suggests, that Zhao seeks to visualize the very act of thinking itself.
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Zhao YaoA Painting of Thought III-366, 2025Acrylic on found fabric200 x 180 cm -
Zhao YaoA Painting of Thought I-506, 2024 - 2025Acrylic on found fabric166 x 166 cm
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Zhao YaoA Painting of Thought IV-SG18, 2018 - 2019Acrylic on found fabric180 x 180 cm
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Zhao YaoA Painting of Thought I-483, 2024 - 2025Acrylic on found fabric180 x 176 cm
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Bottom Layer (Support)
While the support for painting is conventionally canvas, Zhao replaces it with a found fabric he collects during his travels across China. He visits textile markets and rural villages, searching for hand-sewn bedsheets made by local residents. Each fabric bears patterns unique to its region or village, and no two are alike. Some are machine-made, but many retain traces of manual labor. By selecting these “ordinary fabrics” as the foundation of his paintings, Zhao transforms the very traces of daily life into the structural base of his works.
As China’s digital economy rapidly expands and local handicraft traditions fade, Zhao’s act of sourcing fabric becomes akin to recording social change and gathering layers of time. This attitude of “collecting time” also resonates with the diaries. In one entry, he reflects on his experience of searching for fabric:Diary entry: June 1, 2019
“Years ago, when I went to Humen, the markets were still thriving. That time, I drove alone from Guangzhou to Shenzhen, passing through Humen to visit the textile market. This time, only the ground floor was relatively busy while the upper floors were mostly deserted. Guangzhou’s textile city has largely remained the same. Overall, the industry is shrinking and holding on to only its core. Now, whether in Shanghai or Guangzhou, one will see bustling streets with many storefronts shuttered, a sight that was unseen before. Everyone builds recklessly, without considering the long-term development of the city, subsequently all becomes aged and decayed. Not only is upgrading impossible, but even disposal is troublesome. Perhaps art is like this too—states of excitement may spark many impulses, producing short-lived works. However, for long-term and steady growth, development should proceed step by step. As the flourishing energy of 30 years gradually fade away, how will the world exist and face each other? On top of this prosperity, one must also preserve the shift toward decline and its temperament, embedding them into the work. History’s rapid transformations alter countless of our prior understandings. Structurally, both in thought and in tangible results, this is the case.” -
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Top Layer (Surface)
The composition of the acrylic layer on the top is derived from Chinese educational book 1000 Questions, a type of brain teaser puzzles that are designed to develop logical thinking. At first glance, it appears to be some sort of assemblage or collage, made up of precut grids or shapes that have been affixed onto the canvas. But upon closer observation, one will realize something quite different.
Zhao painstakingly applies each layer of acrylic paint with a brush. He repeats this action until the desired depth is achieved and then sands it down to achieve a smooth polished surface. While he is working on one area or a particular shape, the surrounding areas are covered with masking tape. He would repeat this until the image is completed.
At the same time, Zhao maintains a meticulous production chart that maps his progress on the painting. For example, in A Painting of Thought I-506, he began conceptualizing the composition on October 31, 2024, and painted the section marked “A1” from January 2 to February 18, 2025. He recorded the number of layers applied each day using tally marks (正), a traditional Chinese way of counting—three layers on January 5, four on January 6, and so on—each stroke marking time itself. His notes also include specific actions such as “paste,” “sand until flat,” “sand further,” and “cut,” rendering the entire process visible as a single chart.
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Conclusion
Zhao’s handling of materials approach offers an experience that quietly unsettles our habitual modes of perception and understanding. His paintings, that resembles the size of a bedsheet, and the diagrammatic images found in brain-teaser books—both were originally designed for practical purposes, intended to make people more beautiful or more intelligent.
Confronted with these familiar, once-functional elements, we are gently prompted to reconsider what makes a painting a painting, and what kind of action can truly be called “painting.”The A Painting of Thought series, which has continued for more than a decade, passed through the stillness brought by the pandemic—an interval that led Zhao to a new appreciation of a new simplicity.
A quiet, unhurried and meticulous person, Zhao spends a lot of time writing and conversing with himself to slowly unfold and extricate his thoughts. The exhibition title, IT’S ORDINARY, BUT…, succinctly conveys his way of seeing—an attitude of looking at the richness and quiet strength that dwell within the ordinary.
A glimpse of this contemplation can be found in the following excerpt from his diary.Diary entry: February 25, 2025
From the actual situation of III-408, the “A Painting of Thought” series ought to maintain a quality closer to life and ordinary daily experience, which is what should be pursued. The earlier superimposed orderliness was only a transitional phase and never allowed the work’s inherent energy to release. These stars and circles floating on the surface, their ordinary, commonplace presence, conveys a rupture even more direct than painting itself. Its ordinariness and everyday quality should lead it toward something further removed from painting experience, toward the everyday scenes of life—that is where it should persist. This ordinariness may also connect with the spirit of life itself. Only then can its relation to time be realised. Its simplicity is what allows it to leverage other elements. Such direct simplicity holds the possibility of reversal. Life itself is the same: a true regard for the ordinary surpasses attention to special days. To look directly at the commonplace is to tap into energy. To put it another way, such recognition is like acknowledging the eggshell itself. Only by being sufficiently ordinary can it possess the power of an eggshell. The challenge of the idea paintings lies precisely in maintaining such simplicity, in continual self-renunciation, like children’s drawings, reaching an extreme purity. This is difficult. Or rather, idea painting is about preserving such purity and simplicity, about letting go of what already exists. Only in simplicity can greater openness and inclusiveness be achieved. The most recent works embody this quality.
