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Lot Essay
With themes spanning from portraits to abstract landscapes, Zeng Fanzhi's paintings have been widely celebrated for their signature expressionistic style. While his artistic expressions have shifted through the years, Zeng's current paintings witness the artist's return to a fully elaborated canvas. These works display less investment in metaphor and symbol; instead Zeng relies on the 'automatic' flow in his brush to reveal his own aesthetic expressions.
Painted in 2010, Zeng's experimental work with the lines in Untitled 10-6-1 (Lot 410) evokes the different strokes found in traditional Chinese calligraphy. To make this painting, Zeng painted with both hands, and would sometimes work by clutching two brushes at a time; he assigned one brush the role of creator and another as destroyer. By creating and destroying the integrity of his work at the same time, Zeng uncovers the power of abstract expression which lies between 'intentional' and 'incidental'. It exhibits, as well, the dynamics and the varying colours of those multilayered lines. Zeng explains: 'With this new technique, I create and yet I destroy. One of the brushes is creating while the other three have nothing to do with me. I like such creation which happens by chance. Sometimes I will lose control over the image, but after you lose control you look at what you have and you try to get it back again.' He simultaneously creates and obscures his images, achieving a heightened sense of emotion and spontaneity. This form, akin to the Chinese art of calligraphy, demonstrates the artist's profound understanding of the expressive power of lines and his consummate technical skills in manipulating oil paint.
Zeng releases the lyrical power of lines by transforming them into subjective, sentimental and expressive elements; the way he accents the abstract, expressionist appeal of lines is evocative of the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock. The lines in Untitled 10-6-1 are representative of Zeng's continuing aesthetic experimentation - one that seeks to transform the figurative into abstract, and the realistic into expressive - which foreshadows, and guides, Zeng's evolution.
Painted in 2010, Zeng's experimental work with the lines in Untitled 10-6-1 (Lot 410) evokes the different strokes found in traditional Chinese calligraphy. To make this painting, Zeng painted with both hands, and would sometimes work by clutching two brushes at a time; he assigned one brush the role of creator and another as destroyer. By creating and destroying the integrity of his work at the same time, Zeng uncovers the power of abstract expression which lies between 'intentional' and 'incidental'. It exhibits, as well, the dynamics and the varying colours of those multilayered lines. Zeng explains: 'With this new technique, I create and yet I destroy. One of the brushes is creating while the other three have nothing to do with me. I like such creation which happens by chance. Sometimes I will lose control over the image, but after you lose control you look at what you have and you try to get it back again.' He simultaneously creates and obscures his images, achieving a heightened sense of emotion and spontaneity. This form, akin to the Chinese art of calligraphy, demonstrates the artist's profound understanding of the expressive power of lines and his consummate technical skills in manipulating oil paint.
Zeng releases the lyrical power of lines by transforming them into subjective, sentimental and expressive elements; the way he accents the abstract, expressionist appeal of lines is evocative of the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock. The lines in Untitled 10-6-1 are representative of Zeng's continuing aesthetic experimentation - one that seeks to transform the figurative into abstract, and the realistic into expressive - which foreshadows, and guides, Zeng's evolution.