Guitarists and artist who cares

Zheng Wei works on The Tree, a work portraying 185 guitarists. [Photo provided to China Daily]

There's no doubt that Chinese artist Zheng Wei, 33, is a die-hard fan of rock 'n' roll. He's engraved images of his favorite guitarists－as many as 185 of them－onto a nearly 6-meter-high wood block to show respect for his idols.

The Tree, the highlight of Zheng's ongoing solo show at Beijing Art Now Gallery, is a documentary of guitarists born from the 1890s to the 1970s, featuring influential figures in blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz and country music. Faces of musicians appear like fruits on a "guitar tree" stringed with wires.

"It's what I know about the guitarists in the rock 'n' roll world," says Zheng, noting that while many are household names, others who exerted great influence have been largely forgotten.

Faces along the bottom are mainly guitarists from the blues, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Chuck Berry. The central part has well-known figures like Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Bob Dylan. The huge piece is a woodcut with drawings and mixed materials which took Zheng eight months to complete.

Zheng is very familiar with all of the figures he creates－their music, their daily lives and their friends.

He puts together faces of some guitarists who once befriended but later hated each other, which he says is his way to rebuild a relationship for them in his art world.

The Playing Guitar series of the exhibition concentrates on influential figures from the West. One is about William Burroughs, a representative from the Beat Generation in the United States. On Zheng's wood block, Burroughs is cut into many parts on a lawn. Papers with sentences from his novel Naked Lunch are glued onto his body parts and his guitar.

"It's all about fragments: his life, his music and his books."