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Lot Essay
‘As the world looked in, eager to press on to new horizons, Zhang has helped preserve an otherwise invisibles side to the city, presenting impassioned scenes as though we were stood right beside him in one of the most rapidly developed cities in the world.’—Gregor Muir
Born in 1965 in Jilin, China, Zhang Enli experienced the Chinese economic reform and the subsequent birth of capitalist economy. The rapidly developing economy brought unprecedented material wealth to first-tier cities, and new types of social morphologies quickly formed. Gone was the agricultural way of life in which people laboured for meager sustenance. It was replaced by nine-to-five office jobs with which people could afford to indulge in consumerist pleasures. Works that Zhang Enli created in the 1990s were inspired by his early impressions of the newly reformed Shanghai. By using high-contrast colours like red, black, and yellow with an Abstract Expressionist treatment, a sense of violent delights was achieved. Zhang depicted brutal butchers in the market, depraved drug addicts, and gluttonous men and women at banquets with vigorous and layered brushwork. This fascinating approach, though not directly referenced, is reminiscent of works from Cubist master Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. Portrait works from this series are pivotal to Zhang Enli’s artistic career, as they put him in the limelight in the international contemporary art world.
Similar to Meat Market 2, which is currently in the Tate Modern collection, Girl was also completed in 1997. However, the way they vastly differ is that Girl is a rare portrait work featuring a single female subject. And this is the first time that this work is available in the auction market. Zhang Enli purposely applied oil washes thinly and let the western painting medium freely drip. His deceptively improvisational brushwork was executed with great precision—it is a tribute to the Chinese ink painting skills that he diligently practised in his youth. The work is theatrically set in a gloomy atmosphere. An Asian woman with a plump figure crosses her arms in front of her chest. She is visibly nervous judging from the anxieties expressed on her face. It is apparent to the viewers that she knows she is being watched, and her deepest secrets are exposed for all to see. The painting incisively depicts the mental state of someone being scrutinised.
‘I have always believed that watching is related to psychology. Watching is not only concerned with visuality. It is a psychological activity.’—Zhang Enli
To Zhang Enli, painting is a pure form of spiritual investigation. The subject, with high cheekbones and a ghostly pale complexion, is reminiscent of the new way Edvard Munch depicted women, freeing his subject matter from the beauty standard of Realism in the 18th century and bringing the internal struggles and conflicts to the forefront. The face of the girl is the only part in the composition where the artist layered relatively thick and glossy paint. Zhang Enli intentionally did this to make her slightly distorted countenance and vacant gaze more prominent—the subject’s restlessness and anxieties are thus amplified. Francis Bacon once said, 'What I want to do is to distort the thing far beyond the appearance, but in the distortion to bring it back to a recording of the appearance.' It should be evident to the viewers that the works of Francis Bacon had a tremendous influence and personal significance to Zhang Enli’s painting style at this stage of his artistic career.
Born in 1965 in Jilin, China, Zhang Enli experienced the Chinese economic reform and the subsequent birth of capitalist economy. The rapidly developing economy brought unprecedented material wealth to first-tier cities, and new types of social morphologies quickly formed. Gone was the agricultural way of life in which people laboured for meager sustenance. It was replaced by nine-to-five office jobs with which people could afford to indulge in consumerist pleasures. Works that Zhang Enli created in the 1990s were inspired by his early impressions of the newly reformed Shanghai. By using high-contrast colours like red, black, and yellow with an Abstract Expressionist treatment, a sense of violent delights was achieved. Zhang depicted brutal butchers in the market, depraved drug addicts, and gluttonous men and women at banquets with vigorous and layered brushwork. This fascinating approach, though not directly referenced, is reminiscent of works from Cubist master Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. Portrait works from this series are pivotal to Zhang Enli’s artistic career, as they put him in the limelight in the international contemporary art world.
Similar to Meat Market 2, which is currently in the Tate Modern collection, Girl was also completed in 1997. However, the way they vastly differ is that Girl is a rare portrait work featuring a single female subject. And this is the first time that this work is available in the auction market. Zhang Enli purposely applied oil washes thinly and let the western painting medium freely drip. His deceptively improvisational brushwork was executed with great precision—it is a tribute to the Chinese ink painting skills that he diligently practised in his youth. The work is theatrically set in a gloomy atmosphere. An Asian woman with a plump figure crosses her arms in front of her chest. She is visibly nervous judging from the anxieties expressed on her face. It is apparent to the viewers that she knows she is being watched, and her deepest secrets are exposed for all to see. The painting incisively depicts the mental state of someone being scrutinised.
‘I have always believed that watching is related to psychology. Watching is not only concerned with visuality. It is a psychological activity.’—Zhang Enli
To Zhang Enli, painting is a pure form of spiritual investigation. The subject, with high cheekbones and a ghostly pale complexion, is reminiscent of the new way Edvard Munch depicted women, freeing his subject matter from the beauty standard of Realism in the 18th century and bringing the internal struggles and conflicts to the forefront. The face of the girl is the only part in the composition where the artist layered relatively thick and glossy paint. Zhang Enli intentionally did this to make her slightly distorted countenance and vacant gaze more prominent—the subject’s restlessness and anxieties are thus amplified. Francis Bacon once said, 'What I want to do is to distort the thing far beyond the appearance, but in the distortion to bring it back to a recording of the appearance.' It should be evident to the viewers that the works of Francis Bacon had a tremendous influence and personal significance to Zhang Enli’s painting style at this stage of his artistic career.