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Lot Essay
Forty Years Retrospective of Zhou Chunya, the exhibition which recently closed at the Shanghai Art Museum, displayed the evolution and development of Zhou Chunya's artistic career. Zhou's art focuses on intuition and individuality. His early works, with the 1982 oil painting New Tibetan Generation as representative, feature lives in the countryside in a realistic manner. The seed of his stylistic change was sowed during his study in Germany from 1986 to 1989 where he was inspired by the German Neo-Expressionism. It was in 1989, when China was engulfed in the "85 New Wave", that Zhou returned to his homeland. Just as the majority of Chinese artists flocked to Beijing, having in mind the ambition to explore the contemporary social reality, Zhou Chunya went back to Sichuan to retrace the traditional ink painting tradition of venerable artists such as Bada Shanren and Dong Qichang, henceforth created an expressionistic style of his own which is distinctively individual, with an emphasis in colour and visual aesthetics. While his themes thereafter are multifarious, such expressionist disposition was to remain constant throughout his artistic development.
Portrait (Zhang Xi) (Lot 1287), exhibited in the Shanghai retrospective, was painted in 1993 when Zhou's style was in transition from early realistic portrayal of the countryside to his later expressionist endeavours. Even though portrait is Zhou's common motif in his early days, we notice from this work that his representation had moved beyond the conventions of realism. In Portrait, the emphasis is laid on visualizing bodily texture. Subjectively abstracted, the facial outline and expression of the model are blurred and substituted by the Chinese ink-wash techniques of sprinkling and textual strokes. The visual imagery becomes at once peculiar and acute, singling out the restless, apprehensive and sensitive mentality of the subject. The monochromatic background exudes a mystic atmosphere, quite often seen in Zhou's productions in this stage, which captures the essence of the era.
The 1994 oil painting Ya'an (Lot 1288) exemplifies the artist's deft handling of colours and the expressiveness of oil pigments. The coarse, obscure brushwork highlights the texture of the earths and stones and, at the same time, accentuates the compositional design of stacking and gigantism, evocative of the later Stone Series of Zhou. The strikingly brilliant hues of orange and yellow - as intensive and vivid as the Sichuan and Tibetan folk colours - seems however to suggest that the artist reverts to his early style of colouring similar to that in the New Tibetan Generation. The title of the work, Ya'an, an ancient town in Sichuan, has indeed hinted the artist's intention to suffuse the work with folk culture in Sichuan. Obliquely, it reflects the oriental essence of Zhou's creations. Adopting the Germanic Neo-Expressionist techniques of painting, the artist avails himself to the personality and expressiveness of bold colours to reinterpret Chinese landscape, commingling Western and Eastern, fine and folk arts.
In his first creative summit Zhou painted the Stone Series in 1999, which thoroughly inherits his rigorous artistic philosophy. Stone Series is unusually large in size compare to other pieces in the same period. This particular time saw Zhou's meticulous study on traditional literati landscape and bonsai art and, as he recalled, "When I created those 'stones' I was studying the literati landscape painting. I didn't, however, perceive them in the way like the Chinese traditional painters. I did not attempt to scrutinize their material properties and patterns and shapes but to search, according to my own purpose of expression, for those features that all together estrange and amaze me. I have spent much time on studying texture, as I tried, as if obsessed, to capture and ponder over the deep-rooted factors that affect our visual perception of the stones. Their augmentation and magnification are in essence the form; their visualization is in essence the content - I don't have to explain it further. These stones are more astounding and startling than those that are viewed and interpreted through concepts and methods." In its entirety the philosophy of Zhou is about reproducing tradition and the hidden nature and emotion of such tradition. Classic Chinese landscape and stone are often reticent and restrainedly elegant. Zhou, nevertheless, renders his work a form of deviation from the orthodox visualization; his stones are of a bizarre shapes, which tell of his distinct personality, his colours and composition are indicative of a flamboyant, untrammelled, and even a bit violent character. Textural strokes are used in tandem with the viscous oils to produce a curiously intense sense of texture, both sculptural and compact, hence swapping the textual modesty and fragility of traditional ink-wash. The intricate interspersing of formal structure transforms the flat visual feature of literati painting into a fierce, exciting emotional experience. The Chinese classical painting technique of "Mo Fen Wu Se", literally "one ink renders five colours", is implemented with the use of oil pigments. They combine to form a "shell" that veils most part of the canvas, engendering a virtually three-dimensional effect to the whole frame. Zhou Chunya himself makes much of the pieces in the Stone Series and had mentioned them several times in interviews. They represent Zhou's distinctive style of visual manifestation and expressive brushstroke, they echo with his own philosophy on history and artistic creation, and they are indisputably a downright exposition of his thoughts and character.
Zhou Chunya started painting his German wolfhound, Hei Gen, as early as 1995. In 1997 the artist made a bold effort to paint Hei Gen in vibrant green, and there gave birth to the series of Green Hei Gen, or Hei Gen Verde. One of the serial works, Green Hei Gen No.22 (Lot 1289) was put on show in Zhou's first individual exhibition in Italy and was later selected in the Shanghai Joint Exhibition in 2003. We can observe from the work that the focus of expression has changed from the texture of the two dimensional space to figurative structure and the sense of volume. Zhou, when commenting on this series, explained his idea of creation: "It is especially true for the Green Hei Gen that I enhance the charm of the sculptural language. I take them not as graphical images but sculptures on the canvas." The wolfhound in Green Hei Gen No.22 is characterized in its kinked and drastic shape. The monochromatic green is accompanied by a dense, twisting brushwork that produces, as the artist said, a pulsating figurative rhythm. Colours, which seem to be running here and there and spinning around, at once materialize a sculpture's sense of volume and the artist's sentiment and traits. A sculptural nature runs through the colours and brushstrokes of Green Hei Gen No.22 and makes it a good reference to the sculptures Zhou started creating at around the same time.
Painted in 2006, Landscape Nanxun (Lot 1290) tells of another facet of Zhou's art: symbolism and the tender-cum-violent art form. The work was exhibited in 2008 at Zhou's solo exhibition in Taipei. The peach blossoms, symbolic of romantic love in Chinese tradition, are always gracefully represented; Nanxun, an ancient town in Zhejiang, one of the six water towns of Jiangnan, is symbolic of the elegance and delicacy of traditional culture as it was, in the past, the place where merchants and literati clustered together and where palatial mansions and peach blossoms were to be found everywhere. The motif of Landscape Nanxun is in itself highly expressive and indicative of diverse sentiments. While the artist preserves the traditional poise of such culture in the work, the peach blossoms, which are exaggeratedly contorted and coloured, insinuate the human instinct to love and lust. The enigmatic implication of eros resonates the artist's words, to release the instinct and temperament in a flowing sentiment of colors and tender, and yet violent. The forceful, veering brushstroke is a seamless integration of the Chinese literati's sedate ink-wash painting and the German expressionist's unbounded intonation.
Portrait (Zhang Xi) (Lot 1287), exhibited in the Shanghai retrospective, was painted in 1993 when Zhou's style was in transition from early realistic portrayal of the countryside to his later expressionist endeavours. Even though portrait is Zhou's common motif in his early days, we notice from this work that his representation had moved beyond the conventions of realism. In Portrait, the emphasis is laid on visualizing bodily texture. Subjectively abstracted, the facial outline and expression of the model are blurred and substituted by the Chinese ink-wash techniques of sprinkling and textual strokes. The visual imagery becomes at once peculiar and acute, singling out the restless, apprehensive and sensitive mentality of the subject. The monochromatic background exudes a mystic atmosphere, quite often seen in Zhou's productions in this stage, which captures the essence of the era.
The 1994 oil painting Ya'an (Lot 1288) exemplifies the artist's deft handling of colours and the expressiveness of oil pigments. The coarse, obscure brushwork highlights the texture of the earths and stones and, at the same time, accentuates the compositional design of stacking and gigantism, evocative of the later Stone Series of Zhou. The strikingly brilliant hues of orange and yellow - as intensive and vivid as the Sichuan and Tibetan folk colours - seems however to suggest that the artist reverts to his early style of colouring similar to that in the New Tibetan Generation. The title of the work, Ya'an, an ancient town in Sichuan, has indeed hinted the artist's intention to suffuse the work with folk culture in Sichuan. Obliquely, it reflects the oriental essence of Zhou's creations. Adopting the Germanic Neo-Expressionist techniques of painting, the artist avails himself to the personality and expressiveness of bold colours to reinterpret Chinese landscape, commingling Western and Eastern, fine and folk arts.
In his first creative summit Zhou painted the Stone Series in 1999, which thoroughly inherits his rigorous artistic philosophy. Stone Series is unusually large in size compare to other pieces in the same period. This particular time saw Zhou's meticulous study on traditional literati landscape and bonsai art and, as he recalled, "When I created those 'stones' I was studying the literati landscape painting. I didn't, however, perceive them in the way like the Chinese traditional painters. I did not attempt to scrutinize their material properties and patterns and shapes but to search, according to my own purpose of expression, for those features that all together estrange and amaze me. I have spent much time on studying texture, as I tried, as if obsessed, to capture and ponder over the deep-rooted factors that affect our visual perception of the stones. Their augmentation and magnification are in essence the form; their visualization is in essence the content - I don't have to explain it further. These stones are more astounding and startling than those that are viewed and interpreted through concepts and methods." In its entirety the philosophy of Zhou is about reproducing tradition and the hidden nature and emotion of such tradition. Classic Chinese landscape and stone are often reticent and restrainedly elegant. Zhou, nevertheless, renders his work a form of deviation from the orthodox visualization; his stones are of a bizarre shapes, which tell of his distinct personality, his colours and composition are indicative of a flamboyant, untrammelled, and even a bit violent character. Textural strokes are used in tandem with the viscous oils to produce a curiously intense sense of texture, both sculptural and compact, hence swapping the textual modesty and fragility of traditional ink-wash. The intricate interspersing of formal structure transforms the flat visual feature of literati painting into a fierce, exciting emotional experience. The Chinese classical painting technique of "Mo Fen Wu Se", literally "one ink renders five colours", is implemented with the use of oil pigments. They combine to form a "shell" that veils most part of the canvas, engendering a virtually three-dimensional effect to the whole frame. Zhou Chunya himself makes much of the pieces in the Stone Series and had mentioned them several times in interviews. They represent Zhou's distinctive style of visual manifestation and expressive brushstroke, they echo with his own philosophy on history and artistic creation, and they are indisputably a downright exposition of his thoughts and character.
Zhou Chunya started painting his German wolfhound, Hei Gen, as early as 1995. In 1997 the artist made a bold effort to paint Hei Gen in vibrant green, and there gave birth to the series of Green Hei Gen, or Hei Gen Verde. One of the serial works, Green Hei Gen No.22 (Lot 1289) was put on show in Zhou's first individual exhibition in Italy and was later selected in the Shanghai Joint Exhibition in 2003. We can observe from the work that the focus of expression has changed from the texture of the two dimensional space to figurative structure and the sense of volume. Zhou, when commenting on this series, explained his idea of creation: "It is especially true for the Green Hei Gen that I enhance the charm of the sculptural language. I take them not as graphical images but sculptures on the canvas." The wolfhound in Green Hei Gen No.22 is characterized in its kinked and drastic shape. The monochromatic green is accompanied by a dense, twisting brushwork that produces, as the artist said, a pulsating figurative rhythm. Colours, which seem to be running here and there and spinning around, at once materialize a sculpture's sense of volume and the artist's sentiment and traits. A sculptural nature runs through the colours and brushstrokes of Green Hei Gen No.22 and makes it a good reference to the sculptures Zhou started creating at around the same time.
Painted in 2006, Landscape Nanxun (Lot 1290) tells of another facet of Zhou's art: symbolism and the tender-cum-violent art form. The work was exhibited in 2008 at Zhou's solo exhibition in Taipei. The peach blossoms, symbolic of romantic love in Chinese tradition, are always gracefully represented; Nanxun, an ancient town in Zhejiang, one of the six water towns of Jiangnan, is symbolic of the elegance and delicacy of traditional culture as it was, in the past, the place where merchants and literati clustered together and where palatial mansions and peach blossoms were to be found everywhere. The motif of Landscape Nanxun is in itself highly expressive and indicative of diverse sentiments. While the artist preserves the traditional poise of such culture in the work, the peach blossoms, which are exaggeratedly contorted and coloured, insinuate the human instinct to love and lust. The enigmatic implication of eros resonates the artist's words, to release the instinct and temperament in a flowing sentiment of colors and tender, and yet violent. The forceful, veering brushstroke is a seamless integration of the Chinese literati's sedate ink-wash painting and the German expressionist's unbounded intonation.