Though abstract art may seem to be depicting scenes or worlds that are far removed from our everyday reality, often times what is being pictured was inspired by something encountered in rather ordinary situations. And while the Surrealists drew upon dreams, and Abstract Expressionists were often hurling storms of emotional catharsis onto their canvases, Chinese artist Zhang Enli takes his inspiration from some of the most prosaic objects imaginable.

Born in China's Jilin Province in 1965, he began his art practice after graduating from Arts & Design Institute of Wuxi Technical University in 1989 (the same year as the infamous Tiananmen Square protests). From the start he had a fascination with turning the ordinary into the extraordinary - including empty shelves, pipes and hoses, even cardboard boxes and public toilets.

He has exhibited globally, from Shanghai to London to Genoa, Italy - and his current self-titled show at Hauser & Wirth's West Hollywood gallery finds him leaning into the notion of summoning the evocative from the figurative. Works like 'Financier', 'Nomadic Descendant' and 'Visitors on the Icy Mountain' (pictured above, left to right) feel as if they are luring you into a psychological puzzle of sorts, with discoveries to be found amidst the seemingly chaotic but actually surely carefully-considered lines.

Enli himself offers, "I hope the viewers find the paintings tricky to perceive". (He likely already knows that they will.) Or as curator Sook-Kyung Lee observes, "Prolonged viewing reveals changes: what first appears abstract becomes spatial, and what seemed solid begins to waiver."

To be sure, upon careful contemplation, who knows exactly what one might find in there?

Parents: For children wishing to approach creating abstraction, this beautifully filmed video, produced by Hauser & Wirth, can give them very helpful insights on how inspiration and technique can coalesce to produce finished works that are genuinely organic and natural. It can also introduce them to the Chinese language, though the video also has subtitles.