Zeng Fanzhi

Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist by the present owner)

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly richer and warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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Landscape is fresh and intriguing, a dynamic work that combines a calligraphic touch with a romanticist view of nature. Most recently, Zeng Fanzhi developed a new approach to painting, returning to the paint a style he had favoured earlier, as in the present work which is rendered in a limited palette with twisting lines and helical strokes scraped through the wet paint to obscure the imagery. Disparate traditions come together in this painting with a collision of values that enlivens the canvas: expressive lines suggestive of both abstraction and of traditional Chinese brush painting travel the canvas as pure bursts of expressive energy.  The lines relate to abstraction where they contribute to the form of a landscape and bring to mind Chinese brush painting, which places a high value on the hand of the artist.

While his earlier work was influenced by German Expressionism, Zeng Fanzhi has become more interested in Chinese cultural art since the late '90s, especially the paintings of the Song dynasty, which influence this latest work. Using a technique of frenzied and animated lines Zeng Fanzhi can create and yet destroy using a multitude of paint brushes simultaneously to intentionally lose control over the image while leaving traces of his subconscious. Through this combination of painterly realism and automatic expression, Zeng Fanzhi's landscapes are transformed into near abstract fields; the depicted and places merging both memory and imagination.