For over twenty years, Zhang Zheyi has continuously experimented with various subjects, materials, and forms. His early works primarily focused on oil paintings, where objects from his childhood memories, such as tin toys, porcelain, glass marbles, and scholars' desk items, began to occupy a significant place in his paintings as a nostalgic connection for a generation. These objects repeatedly appeared in traditional Chinese painting compositions but were expressed using Western oil paints, establishing a clever visual language through the participation of certain implicit themes. This fusion of Eastern subject aesthetics with Western techniques has become a main thread running through many of Zhang Zheyi's works. Observations on cultural differences and thoughtful creative expressions have continued to bloom throughout his artistic career over the past decade and a half. In numerous oil paintings, Zhang Zheyi uses various symbols of Chinese culture, such as "plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum," "poetry and songs," and "pavilions and towers," to express his admiration and reflection on classical scholar culture. At the same time, the artist has been committed to bridging the past, present, and future in his works, thereby reflecting cultural continuity and even trendiness.

This creative state continued until around 2010, when Zhang Zheyi began exploring various forms of artistic creation beyond easel painting. In 2014, he hung a blank canvas on the wall, inscribing a quatrain in slender gold calligraphy (created by Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty) on one side: "In midsummer, ice forms naturally; a red jade room appears. Winter mist rises, only the broken jade frost remains." Below the canvas on the floor lay a fragmented watermelon made from extremely small LOZ building blocks. At first glance, it seemed as if the watermelon had fallen from the painting and shattered, creating an interesting interplay between the scene and the poem. Using classical poetry in contemporary art cannot merely be an empty shell. In contemporary China, where traditional culture is severely fractured, writing poetry has long since left the daily life of intellectuals. Yet, Zhang Zheyi has consistently maintained this habit in his creations. Unlike the older generation of artists who either "shoulder the heavy burden of tradition" or "eagerly rebel against tradition," Zhang Zheyi's generation and those after him have a cultural awareness. They see the modernization of Chinese traditional culture as a natural process. This quatrain captures an evocative moment and naturally integrates into contemporary art. The watermelon falling from the two-dimensional painting into the three-dimensional real space also signifies Zhang Zheyi's transition from easel painting to installations and public spaces. This work attracted crowds and intense discussions when exhibited at the Adelaide Festival in Australia. Before this, no one had used LOZ building blocks, a non-artistic material, to create pure art. Its composition method (the pixelated effect produced by plastic blocks) and presentation (the coexistence of two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements in one work) were unlike traditional sculptures, representing a new form of "sculpture."

Taking this as an opportunity, Zhang Zheyi fully embarked on the path of creating mixed media and installation art. In 2016, a more than six-meter-high inflatable installation titled "The Comic Character - Ying" was erected in the large square in front of the National Agricultural Exhibition Center on the East Third Ring Road in Beijing. The hard character "Ying" was made of soft inflatable plastic, and what made it stand upright was the world's softest and most intangible substance—"air." This mutual achievement of softness and hardness also expressed a kind of inclusive Eastern philosophy. From 2015 to 2018, two versions of the suspended installation "Red Sea" were successively unveiled. "Red Sea" was entirely made from the waste bricks and rubble of demolished buildings. The second version, standing five meters high and hanging in an atrium twenty meters high, recorded the memories of many people in Beijing—the transformations of the Heiqiao Art District and the Sanli Building. In the early 21st century, during China's real estate boom, the constant drastic changes in public spaces' architecture made "Red Sea" a most representative work, symbolizing that era.

After creating many large-scale physical installations, Zhang Zheyi turned his attention to the art project "Light Fostering Place," which carries a humanitarian concern. By collecting many long-unused lamps from ordinary households and lighting them together, he rekindled memories. In this work, "light" symbolizes the "self," and leaving the light behind symbolizes bidding farewell to one's world and engaging in other collective activities. The "Light Fostering Place" art project was carried out in the Huajiadi Nanli residential area next to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and at the 2018 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. During the exhibition, the original owners of those lights came to the site, quietly interacting with their lights, freezing time. As the artist said, light might not exist in the same space as us, but in this space, "light" transcends time.

Zhang Zheyi's public art projects have expanded the boundaries of his artistic creation, allowing conceptual art to break out of closed exhibition spaces and enter open social spaces. Recently, Zhang Zheyi, in collaboration with his artistic partner, completed the public art installation "A Vision of the World" on Long Island, New York. Like his previous works, it immediately prompted interaction with the audience, highlighting its unique social impact. His recent series "Here and There," where he paints visual diaries on New York subway cards, also has a strong public nature. The presence of public art enables people to discuss artistic creation, forming a specific social culture for a city or a broader community space. The artist's role transcends mere aesthetics, becoming a guide for overcoming the limitations of materiality with spirituality. This is Zhang Zheyi's creative pursuit, which will ultimately achieve a converging effect, including in easel paintings.