Over the past 30 years, Beijing has morphed into a completely different city, both figuratively and literally. The speed of change is so fast, with crews of thousands of workers tearing down large swathes of the capital and building up modern symbols of urban progress such as skyscrapers and theaters out of the wreckage seemingly overnight, that one often wonders what the city must have looked like even one decade ago, much less three. In his series "Twilight City," now on at Red Gate Gallery, master printmaker Zhou Jirong shows us how he has envisioned the Beijing skyline over the past 30 years.

Those hoping for a realistic portrayal of Beijing's changing streets will be disappointed—Zhou's works give impressions of the city's changes rather than the minutiae of the changes themselves. The viewer sees Beijing's skyline as Zhou feels it, misted in gray smog, lit up in the burnt orange glow of a sunset, with ghostly images of traffic and buildings surfacing to tug at a sense of nostalgia, giving the impression one is looking at places that once held meaning for someone, but are now only half-remembered dreams.

Urban demolition and the resulting loss of culture and history have long fascinated the artist, who also serves as the deputy director of Central Academy of Fine Arts. Zhou Jirong uses art to examine the tensions between old and new, and made a name for himself through his "Mirage" series of silkscreen prints that depict the demolition and changes that have swept through Beijing since the 1990s.

In "Twilight City" he forgoes silkscreening, instead substituting thick sheets of paper, hand made from mulching bark and plant fibers, a technique he learned from studying traditional papermaking among ethnic minorities in Yunnan Province. Using a variety of pigments, paints, mesh and other media on these thick sheets of paper, he creates amazingly textured pieces, with dips, grooves, peaks and points that work together to give the art a life of its own. The pieces in "Twilight City" are multi-layered and complex, much like the skyline of the city they depict.

DETAILS

What: Twilight City

Where: Red Gate Gallery

When: Through Sep. 18

Tel: 6525-1005

Web: www.redgategallery.com