Zhi Ding: Drifting Shore

Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present Drifting Shore, our first solo show with Zhi Ding. Please join us the public reception on Friday, November 1, from 5 to 8pm at our Chicago location alongside a show celebrating the gallery’s 20th anniversary in Gallery One. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.

By observing and exploring her father’s simplified and idealized vision of the American Dream in a new series of small paintings, Zhi Ding not only reveals a romanticized and tailored American fantasy deeply rooted in the hearts of his generation but also uses it as a basis to further explore the human desire to escape and search for utopia, along with the paradox embedded in these dreams. The exhibition’s title implies this—the shore is both a point of departure and arrival. Drifting suggests less autonomy and more randomness, as one is controlled by a higher power. The “drifting shore” symbolizes a visible/tangible yet unattainable anchor point—a homeland that cannot be returned to, a destination that cannot be reached. It is not a real endpoint, but a vessel for carrying certain fantasies and hopes.

Certain motifs drift through the exhibition: a floating lawn, a red-roofed house with no doors, and burning cigarettes. The pristine lawn and the red-roofed house embody the American Dream as imagined by Ding’s father and his generation in China. At the same time, they reveal a certain longing and a concrete vision of a utopia that lived deep in the hearts of their generation. For Ding, one of the most familiar images of her father is of him smoking alone. She combines this personal memory with the vision of a perfect lawn, which symbolizes her father’s idealized version of himself in a better life, to create these melancholic yet absurd images. The burning cigarettes, a symbol of his identity and habits, clash with this idealized vision, foreign to the polished suburban life they admire; creating a tension — a sense of fragility and combustibility—this dream feels precarious, as if it could be destroyed at any moment.

In “In Silence, In Tears,” a blurred face and a simplified red-roofed house stand opposite each other, filled with longing but unable to connect. In “Brave the Wind and Waves,” a figure rides on a floating lawn that mimics a magical flying carpet—portraying the American Dream as a vessel for escape and fantasy for Ding’s father and his generation. Through these works, Ding explores the complex reality of the American Dream—layered with longing, fragility, illusions, and alienation. It’s a utopia built from idealized elements, offering solace while concealing the struggles beneath the surface.

Zhi Ding (b. 1992, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, China) recently opened her first solo show in Hong Kong at MOU PROJECTS. She obtained her BS in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 2017, her Post-Bacc in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institution of Chicago in 2021, and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. Ding currently lives and works in New York City.