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Lot Essay
“Each ancient tree and scholar’s rock holds a microcosm of the universe brimming with life. When you look at an old tree or a rock intently, focusing all your attention – the myriad different lines filled with inherent tension and energy begin to reveal themselves. The intertwined, serpentine branches have much vitality and beauty within.”
A consummate connoisseur and artist, Zeng Xiaojun collects antique furniture, scholar’s rocks and grotesque roots which the Chinese literati have long held the tradition of depicting. In turn, these esoteric objects become the subjects of his ink paintings. With careful, meticulous brushstroke, Zeng Xiaojun portrays the labyrinthine roots and twisted branches of old trees that reverberate with this scholarly tradition. The structures and organisms of nature are thus transformed into objects of abstract beauty.
Wild Spirit Screen presides over the artist’s Beijing studio: the colossal, ancient camphor tree, possibly over 1500 years old, has a monumental presence that cannot be missed. Zeng Xiaojun has a superb eye for texture, shape and detail. From prolonged observation and sketching, he painstakingly outlines the intricate branches, and applies light colour to bring forth the mesmerising beauty of the decaying wood, appreciated from different angles like a scholar’s rock.
For the artist, the gnarled branches carry notions of decay and death, yet they also manifest the most elemental vigour of life: the ability to regenerate. Weathered trees carry traces left by the movement of the sun, and are merely waiting for a new beginning in the cycle of life. Zeng paints with this spirit in mind and depicts all the intricate lines and structures that he can see and touch.
Born in Beijing in 1954, Zeng Xiaojun graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Design in Beijing, specialising in mural painting. He moved to the United States in 1983 and lived in Boston for over a decade. In 1997 the artist moved back to Beijing, his hometown. His fascination with scholar’s rocks, scholar’s objects, trees, and Chinese antique furniture brings inspiration to his art; this affiliation is evident in his early landscape paintings and his more recent portraits of trees. His pursuit in ink paintings returns to the ancient literary and artistic practice that he longs for.
A consummate connoisseur and artist, Zeng Xiaojun collects antique furniture, scholar’s rocks and grotesque roots which the Chinese literati have long held the tradition of depicting. In turn, these esoteric objects become the subjects of his ink paintings. With careful, meticulous brushstroke, Zeng Xiaojun portrays the labyrinthine roots and twisted branches of old trees that reverberate with this scholarly tradition. The structures and organisms of nature are thus transformed into objects of abstract beauty.
Wild Spirit Screen presides over the artist’s Beijing studio: the colossal, ancient camphor tree, possibly over 1500 years old, has a monumental presence that cannot be missed. Zeng Xiaojun has a superb eye for texture, shape and detail. From prolonged observation and sketching, he painstakingly outlines the intricate branches, and applies light colour to bring forth the mesmerising beauty of the decaying wood, appreciated from different angles like a scholar’s rock.
For the artist, the gnarled branches carry notions of decay and death, yet they also manifest the most elemental vigour of life: the ability to regenerate. Weathered trees carry traces left by the movement of the sun, and are merely waiting for a new beginning in the cycle of life. Zeng paints with this spirit in mind and depicts all the intricate lines and structures that he can see and touch.
Born in Beijing in 1954, Zeng Xiaojun graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Design in Beijing, specialising in mural painting. He moved to the United States in 1983 and lived in Boston for over a decade. In 1997 the artist moved back to Beijing, his hometown. His fascination with scholar’s rocks, scholar’s objects, trees, and Chinese antique furniture brings inspiration to his art; this affiliation is evident in his early landscape paintings and his more recent portraits of trees. His pursuit in ink paintings returns to the ancient literary and artistic practice that he longs for.