Zhu Yi Yong “Red Star” showcases new works that expand on his ongoing exploration of the popular child’s game, cat’s cradle. The game of cat’s cradle is played all over the world existing in many different forms and under many different names. It harkens back to an age of simplicity and innocence, a time when a child’s imagination is taking form and their interests are beginning to grow. The red star that every child has shaped in their hands carries all the weight of China’s revolutionary past. It is a wry juxtaposition, the children of the future holding in their hands the powerful symbol of China’s collective memory.
Zhu Yi Yong was born in Chongching, Sichuan Province, in 1957. He studied oil painting at the highly acclaimed Oil department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China in 1977, in the first class of students to be admitted after the Cultural Revolution.
