Position: Teacher
Telephone: +44 (0)131 662 2180
Email: info@confuciusinstitute.ac.uk
Chi Zhang is Scotland’s leading Chinese artist and has been teaching at The Confucius Institute for Scotland since early 2008. He graduated with an MSc degree from The University of Dundee. With a growing interest in Chinese art, Chi has actively participated in numerous cultural events with the institute, delivering workshops, live Chinese calligraphy performances, and public demonstrations.
In recent years, he has brought Chinese art to mainstream media:
- 2022:Exclusively interviewed in the BBC documentary Loop – The Art of Chinese Brush Painting, where he showcased his depiction of Edinburgh’s iconic Arthur’s Seat.
- 2023:Collaborated with TV presenter Jim Moir on a Sky TV programme, blending traditional Chinese brush painting with the natural beauty of the Scottish Highlands.
Chi was shortlisted for Sky Art Landscape Artist of the Year in 2015. His Chinese calligraphy was projected onto Edinburgh Castle during the 2015 Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and his Chinese landscape paintings were exhibited at the Scottish National Gallery Academy Building in 2012 and 2013.
In the literary world, Chi contributed the calligraphy frontispiece for all translated poems in Selected Poems by Robert Burns in Chinese Translation (Edinburgh University Press, 2010). He also provided calligraphy for Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds: Li Bai an Du Fu in Scots (Taproot Press, 2021), a publication supported by a Scottish Book Trust grant.
Through his weekly classes for beginners and improvers, along with occasional workshops at the Confucius Institute, Chi Zhang introduces the art and philosophy of Chinese calligraphy and brush painting to a wide audience.