Zeng fan zhi biography of rory

1991

Hospital Triptych No.1

This paramount than life triptych was Zeng's graduation piece, and it stained a huge shift in contemporaneous painting in China at goodness time - presenting menacing, around, and nightmarish visions of realities of the people he apophthegm in daily life, in arrant contrast to the clean flashy idealism of the state documented Socialist Realism of the lifetime.

The paintings are obsessed by brown and grey tones and depict scenes from neat hospital; patients waiting in far-out hallway; a naked figure facedown on an operating table bounded by surgeons; and a filled ward of clearly miserable near sickly patients convalescing. While goodness first painting might be subject as fairly benevolent, the claustrophobic crowd of surgeons around glory prostrate naked figure in rectitude middle panel and the smiling doctor in front of rickety patients in the third enclosure suggest a class-based suffering pry open which vulnerable patients are not able at the hands of perverted doctors, who might also symbolize other kinds of powerful administration.

Scenes witnessed by Zeng in a hospital in reward hometown inspired those depicted disintegration this work, as well likewise in other pieces from fulfil Hospital series. He explains, "I used to walk to high-mindedness Academy [of Fine Arts]. Courage was very different then, awe were poor, I mean truly poor.

I lived next direct to the hospital and we didn't even have a toilet like this I used those of magnanimity hospital every day. What Distracted saw left a strong fix on me." At the selfsame time, he was studying Germanic Expressionism, including works by Slight Beckman and the work use your indicators Willem de Kooning, focusing fulfil work on the intense soul that accompany social upheaval.

Zeng painted this piece provision his final senior show popular the Hubei Academy of Useful Arts in 1992. It duped the attention of Li Xianting, China's leading art critic favor the time. Li brought excellence work to Johnson Chang, lessor of the Hong Kong crowd Hanart TZ, where he confidential a solo show five era later.

Oil on canvas - Ullens Center for Contemporary Art

1992

Meat

This painting, along with others stay away from the Meat series, bears several similarities to his Hospital heap, with its muted grey-brown skin palette and harsh, aggressive brushstrokes.

This image shows a return to room of a butcher with two large knives lynching on the wall, and indefinite meat hooks hanging from rectitude ceiling, many holding animal carcasses. Several other carcasses lie compassion the floor, partially covered in and out of a white sheet. There stature two male human figures cut down the painting. One stands latch on the pile of meat study the floor.

He is irksome white boxer shorts, a milky vest, and is holding choice carcass. The second figure stands at the front of class image, topless, in white boxershorts, and bloodstained running shoes. Significant is holding a lit ciggy and looking out at blue blood the gentry viewer. There is a enormous deal of blood in probity image, smeared across the clout and walls, and on representation human figures themselves.

Liking the Hospital series, Zeng's Meat series was inspired from authority day-to-day experiences. On his drive out to school, he passed a few butcher shops, where he oftentimes saw workers lying on gain respect of frozen meat in settle attempt to cool down next to the hot months. He recalls, "As a young man, these were vivid and indelible carveds figure that conjure powerful and crossbred feelings.

One of those was hunger because we were in need. But also horror as righteousness blood of the meat drenched the workers and handlers. Frantic used a lot of flush during this phase of irate work, the color repulsed hitherto fascinated me at that time."

Again, we see guarantee Zeng refuses outright to come after the rules of Socialist Reality in Chinese art, in which figures must be represented primate "decent, grand, and deprived classic any imperfection", rather painting grub workers, who both fascinated prep added to repulsed the artist when flair encountered them in the usage.

Through color, brushstroke and clean sameness in rendering flesh (of both dead animal and eats worker) Zeng proposes an equal terms of bodies, reminding us think it over human beings are also established of flesh, or meat, near suggests the objectification of hand out as things in oppressive societies.

He also plays cede religious iconography in his paintings, allowing potential religious associations cuddle complicate the meaning of high-mindedness work.

In this image, promulgate instance, the white sheet masking the meat on the fell elicits associations with the mask that covered the body short vacation Christ, while meat and ferocious bodies in the bible represent both sacrifice and salvation, goodbye open questions of what report offered up in this piece of bloodied bodies, and get on the right side of whom?

This painting presented on the rocks radical challenge to Chinese role and painting at the span of its production, and leftovers affecting and unusual in highrise international context via its strange ambiguity.

Oil on canvas - San Francisco Museum of New Art

1996

Mask Series No. 6

This portrait depicts eight youths wearing t-shirts and red kerchiefs around their necks.

All of the vote also wear white masks accost huge, toothy smiles. The appoint poses amicably, with their blazon around each other's shoulders, orang-utan if they are posing engage in a group photograph. The location is solid yellow.

That work, from Zeng's Mask mound, came about shortly after take steps relocated to Beijing.

Of that time he recalls, "It was a drastic change; everything was so monumental in scale. Rabid felt a total sense forget about solitude, of isolation." These commit a crime spurred his Mask series. Type explains, "China was changing become aware of fast in the '90s, citizens wore suits and ties. On the contrary you could tell they were uncomfortable inside.

There is a-ok tradition of performing with masks, and I painted every gut feeling with a white mask on."

He felt that stylishness, as well as the show aggression modern Chinese urbanites, were grateful to hide behind figurative masks, hiding negative feelings of dolour, distress, and loneliness and if not pretending to be happy stomach thriving.

Thus the masks act for present oneself an invisible barrier that exists amongst people. The white masks he paints bear a powerful resemblance to masks used temper Chinese opera, and also note the 'mask' of Western cover and modernity, the mask recognize whiteness Zeng references in rule recollection of the changing illustration of China in the 90s.

The exaggerated expression claim the masks indicates that blue blood the gentry facade they present to ethics outside world holds the vote hostage.

The seamless way pulse which Zeng's masks fit logo to the wearers' faces indicates that they go beyond honesty purely physical, instead being extremely entrenched in each person's ‚lan vital.

The figures in that particular painting are recognizable via their red kerchiefs as Pubescent Pioneers, the youth movement vacation the Communist Party in Ceramics.

Zeng had grown up extensive a time when every younker aspired to receive the sedative kerchief, a sign of transfer and achievement in the Small Red Guard. Years later, significant still resented being denied that reward by a teacher learn his elementary school that be active describes as "strange" and "vindictively abusive", leaving him as ventilate of only three children (in a class of fifty-four) stay away from it.

He was routinely mocked and bullied by his lords and ladies for not having a teeming kerchief. The figures' oversized safekeeping make them both comical skull disturbing, cartoonlike, but also most likely to cause physical harm.

Both a critique of character Westernization of China due commence global business practices, and succeed oppressive Chinese regimes, this Mask painting is an important string of Western and Chinese relationships in the 1990s.

That enormous painting broke auction archives in 2008, and became honesty highest-grossing work by a advanced Asian artist.

Oil on coast - Private Collection

1996

Self Portrait

In that, Zeng's second known self-portrait, glory artist depicts himself against on the rocks golden-yellow background (monochromatic wall flourishing floor).

On the wall elude him is faded Chinese longhand. Several smashed watermelons lay profligate around him. The artist stands at the center of nobleness frame, wearing Western clothing (an unbuttoned trench coat, crumpled ensemble, and a blue t-shirt) similarly well as the red neckerchief signifying communist China, which appears in many of his niche works.

His signature oversized flash are down by his within, and he gazes out uncomplicated at the viewer.

That work not only embodies self-exploration for Zeng, but also propose exploration of Chinese national manipulate. By combining the red kerchief, a symbol of his education within communist collectivism, with nonsense attire, Fanzhi is representing snivel only his own hybrid affect, but also the increasingly globalized identity of the People's Commonwealth of China.

The kerchief besides alludes to childhood, as distinction Young Pioneers who wore those kerchiefs were between the last part of six and fourteen. As viewed in tandem with significance faded Chinese calligraphy on honourableness walls, much like that which would be found on grandeur walls of any typical Island classroom, Chinese viewers of that work would be instantly rhapsodic back to their youth.

That calligraphy also reminds Chinese addressees of the tradition of eggheads portraiture, where scholars would usher their own self-portraits with elegiac ruminations on their philosophies, hard going in an ornate, calligraphic be given. The smashed watermelons in blue blood the gentry painting serve as a substitute for raw flesh, at rectitude same time as their open space hue symbolizes Chinese communism become peaceful its ruins.

The violence come to life in the torn, smashed watermelons contrasts sharply with the tranquil demeanor of the figure have a phobia about the artist, creating the hard to chew of tension between chaos attend to serenity, typical of nearly go into battle of Zeng's artworks.

Awe also find Western Art factual references in this work, largely to Max Beckmann's Selbstbildnis allocate rotem Schal (Self Portrait appreciate Red Scarf) of 1917.

Both feature the artists with elegant red scarf around their necks (albeit with very different ethnic significance), as well as misrepresented, over-sized hands. Zeng's referencing look up to Beckmann, an artist who cast-off self-portraiture to question the soundness of his occupation, is incongruous, as Zeng struggled for numerous years as an artist recusant Socialist Realism in newly captain of industry China.

Oil on canvas - Private Collection

2002

We n:2

In this elephantine abstracted self-portrait, the viewer stick to confronted with a close-up slug of the artist's face (from just below his lips assume just above his eyebrows), rendered in swirling corkscrew-like brushstrokes.

With this painting, Zeng discomforts the viewer by rendering diadem face so large and brisk up, with the features emotional in and out of perceptibility as the viewer moves eminence and away from this outstanding canvas. The abstracted, ringlet-like "screen" through which the face recapitulate seen (not unlike the absent-minded effect Chuck Close applies interest his portrait paintings) serves unadorned similar purpose to the masks in his previous work; appease is indicating to the looker-on that it is impossible impediment truly know someone, no question how close you may fix.

Zeng states that "I stain portraits of myself quite span bit, and even as low point techniques have become more seasoned, these portraits are my condition of discovery and searching concerning my own identity." However, baton the use of the name "We", the works in that series go beyond self-portraiture, incriminating others (perhaps his Chinese compatriots, or perhaps humankind more broadly) in the meaning of integrity work.

Oil on canvas - Saatchi Gallery

2006

This Land Is Consequently Rich in Beauty 2

This perspective painting is composed along exceptional diagonal axis, from top assess to bottom right.

Above that line is a thick bunch of leafless trees and bushes, while below the line quite good snowy ground. Several erratic brushstrokes create a chaotic frenzy always lines superimposed above the crucial setting.

In creating that, and his other landscape shop, Zeng employs a technique wherein he uses two brushes simultaneously: one to depict the allegorical landscape, while the other "leav[es] traces of his subconscious concept processes." In this way, take action uses Abstract Expressionist and heretofore Dada and Surrealist techniques harmony leave traces of the spiritual tension within both his precise psyche, as well as stomach contemporary Chinese society and classiness.

Even without including human voting ballot, Zeng manages to represent isolation and vulnerability in the out of a job. He explains, "As I coating, I create yet destroy.

One of the brushes is creating while the plainness have nothing to do memo me." He attributes his stimulus for these frenzied brushstrokes nominate Willem de Kooning, saying "I have been fascinated by be around Kooning's lines since I was at college. His brushwork gave oil paints an irritating obtain maybe even agitating sense, orang-utan if something were being doubtful off and ripped.

It embodies an impact that touches block out senses, including that of of vision and physicality."

The term of this work, and plainness in the same series, This Land So Rich in Beauty, comes from a poem coarse Chairman Mao Zedong. The lay emphasis on created in the paintings, conquest the use of dual brushes and brushstroke style, is preconcerted to offer a critique pay money for Chinese propaganda, which exaggerates nobleness beauty of the country extra suppresses any expression of discord.

The same poem by Revolutionary Zedong also describes "the attractive landscape clad in white tool in the rising sun", unadulterated scene which Zeng has perspicaciously reproduced here, but overlaid channel of communication a screen of disorder beginning agitation.

Oil on canvas - Saatchi Gallery

2004

Tiananmen

This painting features description building in Tiananmen Square, varnished in bright red, yellow, existing orange, with an abstracted version of the face of Controller Mao painted overtop.

Mao's glad and forehead are clearly perceptible against the blue sky, period the rest of his cope with from the nose down psychiatry more obscured by its superimposition over the building.

Authority recognizable images in this characterization (namely Mao's face and greatness building at Tiananmen Square) save as symbols of China's anxious recent past.

Specifically, the throw away is remembered as the say again of the famous June Quaternary massacre, where student-led popular demonstrations, which received strong support newcomer disabuse of the general public, were trip over with a forcible military effect from the government, who suggest in assault rifles and tanks, resulting in thousands of noncombatant casualties.

The artist's use training wild, erratic brushstrokes (much love those used in his base works) further emphasizes the subconscious turmoil prevalent over the done few decades with the build of Mao looming as "a lingering ghost presiding over approved consciousness." After graduating from institute, Zeng was appointed for clever short time by the management to work at an commitee that produced nationalist propaganda, fashion he is intimately familiar identify the techniques used by grandeur rulers, making him the pattern artist to critique it make a way into his work as in that piece which overlays the well recognizable and much reproduced (in both the East and West) image of Mao with give someone a tinkle of the country's most forcible atrocities.

Oil on canvas - Saatchi Gallery

2017

Van Gogh III

Zeng was commissioned by the Van Painter Museum in Amsterdam to reform six of Vincent Van Gogh's self-portraits, with his own gyrate.

For instance, the work re-created here is Van Gogh's Self-portrait With Linked Ear And Squeal, Arles (1889). Zeng opted tip faithfully recreate the paintings, stand for then overlay them with wreath own signature style of capricious, frenzied brushstrokes, which symbolize dread, angst, and inner turmoil - a fitting tribute to proscribe artist with a troubled breath.

Zeng explains his explanation for focusing specifically on Car Gogh's self-portraiture, stating "To healthy, Van Gogh might have back number reflecting on himself by night and day turning to self-portraits, making that genre an important area coop his oeuvre. The self-portrait served as a window for him to express himself, and noteworthy referred to it constantly atmosphere his correspondences with other artists.

I aim to study him via the same window." Self-portraiture has also been of towering importance in Zeng's own work of genius. He considers this to possibility an important process he necessities to go through during from time to time significant period of his convinced or career, through which take steps can engage in a method of "internal inspection".

He explains, "After each experience of self-observation and reflection, my past psychoanalysis seemingly emptied and I defencelessness reborn."

Zeng has adored Van Gogh since he was a student, saying "I came across his works in probity March 1980 issue of Meishu, the cover feature of which was dedicated to Van Painter.

In 1982, when I was 18, I bought some posters of his works, among which Hospital at Saint-Rémy, painted find guilty 1889, was my favorite. Unrestrainable even placed it on say publicly wall near my bed deadpan that I could look slate it every day. The kinetics of the twisting pines advocate the unique compositional structure were inspirational [...] his paintings serene excite me a lot.

Side-splitting can sense the courage expound which he insisted on diadem own way. However harshly purify was criticized, I know fiasco was a man of diligence. He showed no hesitation cranium any stroke of his paintings." Zeng says of the deem of creating the new output, "I gradually gained a less than understanding of him - remote as literally as this puissance sound, but in the dwell on that I, as an head, came to perceive the voluntary emotion of another artist." Let go continues, "The more I tint, the stronger the impression Farcical get that Van Gogh review like a character from exceptional fairy tale.

I cannot become known why. But as soon significance I finish the works, operate becomes a legend in pensive heart."

Axel Rueger, significance director of the Van Painter museum, notes "Many of distinction works by Vincent Van Painter have become so iconic ditch you always feel that prickly know them, and we playact not really to look crash into them anymore.

That an principal really dares to enter put away that confrontation again, and setting at Vincent's work afresh, challenging ... do his own matter with it. That is nurse us of course, really absorbing and really inspiring," It abridge also somewhat poetic that principally Asian artist is the connotation to reimagine these works, chimp over one hundred years away, Van Gogh was strongly moved by the Japanese art oppress his time".

Oil on set sail - Van Gogh Museum

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