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Lot Essay
A painter's painter, Zhang Enli's paintings are distinct from his Chinese contemporaries - bearing no relation to 'Political Pop', 'Kitsch Art' or 'Cynical Realism' prevalent of the 1990s. His paintings of forgotten people, spaces and objects elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary with his expressive lines and curves. Taking visual material from whatever is close at hand in his studio -buckets, a hose, a marble ball (fig. 1), Zhang quietly reflects on voids surrounding these spaces and objects. Zhang's paintings are rarely produced from direct observation, but from sketches, photographs and, from his memories.
In Inspired by Delacroix (Lot 28) a man with a pale white face lay horizontally in a flat space of murky browns and grays. Semi-transparent layers of paint and the traces of brush strokes draw the viewer's focus to the materiality of the painting. Influenced by the loose washes of traditional Chinese brush painting, Zhang dilutes his paint until it becomes a thin glaze, leaving pencil drawn grids visible underneath the layers of the paint. His paintings are artistic constructs, not direct replicas of any given subject, emoting Zhang's own feelings. The perspective of this painting is altered to heighten the drama of the figure. The muted tones and thin application of paint make the figure in Inspired by Delacroix seem otherworldly, as if occupying an alternative reality where only the essence of the figure is depicted on the canvas. Here the figure is enlarged, so that only a specific fragment of a scene is shown, as seen through the lenses on a camera.
Zhang picked a segment of one of the most well-known painting of the French Revolution, Liberty Leading the People (fig. 2) by Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People is an epic narrative commemorating the July revolution of 1830, which overthrown the Monarchy of France. A woman personifying the goddess of Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen comrades, waving the flag of the French Revolution - the tricolor flag which is still France's flag today - in one hand and gripping a bayonetted musket with the other. Instead of choosing to depict the main character of the painting, Zhang chose a minor figure - fallen soldier in the lower right section. As part of the compositional structure of Liberty Leading the People, the fallen solider is situated within the mound of corpses that acts as a kind of pedestal from which Liberty strides. In this minor and supporting position of this epic narrative, the artist attention makes this part valuable for its pictorial existence. The artist is perhaps guiding us to discover unknown viewpoints, showing us unusual perspectives, and infusing Inspired by Delacroix with an aura of existential desolation, that would become his signature style.
Zhang Enli began his artistic career in the early 1990s. Born in 1965 in Jilin, China, he graduated from the Arts & Design Institute of Wuxi Technical University in 1989 and relocated to Shanghai where he was a teacher at the Arts & Design Institute of Donghua University until 2008. During the early stages of his career, the artist's choice of subject matter was the common people from the country who migrated to Shanghai. His style at the time was characterised by explicitly expressionistic brushstrokes, communicating primal human instincts and emotions. These figures are often seen in crowded spaces eating or drinking, often in their most instinctual human state. The artist becomes a voyeur observing, while the protagonists are unaware of being observed. As Zhang progresses as an artist, he began to shift focus onto unusual perspectives and the everyday forgotten objects. The years 2002-2003, was an important time for him. He was transitioning from expressionistic figurative art to painting objects, signifying a time of breakthrough and maturity for the artist. Inspired by Delacroix, painted in 2003, is one of the last large scale human figures the artist painted before he omitted human presence in his works. The paintings attention on the void and the valueless, sets president for his later career trajectory. Therefore Inspired by Delacroix is a significant work in Zhang Enli's artistic oeuvre.
The nature of his practice is not faithful renditions of objects or people, but highly personal offerings, 'all things and sceneries are connected with the artist's emotions', he once said. The prominent Art Historian Norman Bryson once described the still life paintings of the Spanish 17th Century monastic cultured, as the following which aptly parallels Zhang's works, "the worldly scale of importance is deliberately assaulted by plunging attention downwards, forcing the eye to discover in the trivial base of life intensities and subtleties which are normally ascribed to things of great worthKthe result is that what is valueless becomes priceless: by detaining attention in this humble milieuKattention itself gains the power to transfigure the common place." Hence, Inspired by Delacroix, is injected with Zhang's unique artistic vision, calling attention to the "extraordinary of the ordinary," transforming an often over looked segment of an epic historical painting into his own masterpiece.
In Inspired by Delacroix (Lot 28) a man with a pale white face lay horizontally in a flat space of murky browns and grays. Semi-transparent layers of paint and the traces of brush strokes draw the viewer's focus to the materiality of the painting. Influenced by the loose washes of traditional Chinese brush painting, Zhang dilutes his paint until it becomes a thin glaze, leaving pencil drawn grids visible underneath the layers of the paint. His paintings are artistic constructs, not direct replicas of any given subject, emoting Zhang's own feelings. The perspective of this painting is altered to heighten the drama of the figure. The muted tones and thin application of paint make the figure in Inspired by Delacroix seem otherworldly, as if occupying an alternative reality where only the essence of the figure is depicted on the canvas. Here the figure is enlarged, so that only a specific fragment of a scene is shown, as seen through the lenses on a camera.
Zhang picked a segment of one of the most well-known painting of the French Revolution, Liberty Leading the People (fig. 2) by Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People is an epic narrative commemorating the July revolution of 1830, which overthrown the Monarchy of France. A woman personifying the goddess of Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen comrades, waving the flag of the French Revolution - the tricolor flag which is still France's flag today - in one hand and gripping a bayonetted musket with the other. Instead of choosing to depict the main character of the painting, Zhang chose a minor figure - fallen soldier in the lower right section. As part of the compositional structure of Liberty Leading the People, the fallen solider is situated within the mound of corpses that acts as a kind of pedestal from which Liberty strides. In this minor and supporting position of this epic narrative, the artist attention makes this part valuable for its pictorial existence. The artist is perhaps guiding us to discover unknown viewpoints, showing us unusual perspectives, and infusing Inspired by Delacroix with an aura of existential desolation, that would become his signature style.
Zhang Enli began his artistic career in the early 1990s. Born in 1965 in Jilin, China, he graduated from the Arts & Design Institute of Wuxi Technical University in 1989 and relocated to Shanghai where he was a teacher at the Arts & Design Institute of Donghua University until 2008. During the early stages of his career, the artist's choice of subject matter was the common people from the country who migrated to Shanghai. His style at the time was characterised by explicitly expressionistic brushstrokes, communicating primal human instincts and emotions. These figures are often seen in crowded spaces eating or drinking, often in their most instinctual human state. The artist becomes a voyeur observing, while the protagonists are unaware of being observed. As Zhang progresses as an artist, he began to shift focus onto unusual perspectives and the everyday forgotten objects. The years 2002-2003, was an important time for him. He was transitioning from expressionistic figurative art to painting objects, signifying a time of breakthrough and maturity for the artist. Inspired by Delacroix, painted in 2003, is one of the last large scale human figures the artist painted before he omitted human presence in his works. The paintings attention on the void and the valueless, sets president for his later career trajectory. Therefore Inspired by Delacroix is a significant work in Zhang Enli's artistic oeuvre.
The nature of his practice is not faithful renditions of objects or people, but highly personal offerings, 'all things and sceneries are connected with the artist's emotions', he once said. The prominent Art Historian Norman Bryson once described the still life paintings of the Spanish 17th Century monastic cultured, as the following which aptly parallels Zhang's works, "the worldly scale of importance is deliberately assaulted by plunging attention downwards, forcing the eye to discover in the trivial base of life intensities and subtleties which are normally ascribed to things of great worthKthe result is that what is valueless becomes priceless: by detaining attention in this humble milieuKattention itself gains the power to transfigure the common place." Hence, Inspired by Delacroix, is injected with Zhang's unique artistic vision, calling attention to the "extraordinary of the ordinary," transforming an often over looked segment of an epic historical painting into his own masterpiece.