Zeng Fanzhi (1964- ) - 2000 Mask Series (Christie's Hong Kong, 2012)
Oil on canvas; 180 x 162 cm.
Zeng Fanzhi ( 曾梵志) (born 1964, Wuhan, China) is an artist based in Beijing.There are few Chinese painters whose careers boast the breadth and complexity as that of Zeng Fanzhi. From the earliest stages of his career, Zeng Fanzhi's paintings have been marked by their emotional directness, the artist's intuitive psychological sense, and his carefully calibrated expressionistic technique. Moving to the more cosmopolitan Beijing in the early 1990s, Zeng's art displayed an immediate shift, responding to his immersion in a more superficial environment, his seminal Mask series displaying the tensions between the artist's dominant existential concerns and an ironic treatment of the pomposity and posturing inherent to his new contemporary urban life. Throughout, Zeng's expressionistic techniques run counter to such techniques' conventional usage. That is, Zeng's representation of raw, exposed flesh or awkwardly over-sized hands is not an attempt at pure emotional expression, but instead play against the superficially composed appearances of his subjects, an ironic treatment of emotional performance as a metaphor for a lost self, of stunted self-realization.
He grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and he went to the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts.[1] There, he was largely influenced by Expressionism. Currently, Zeng is one of, if not the most popular artist of his era,[1] in addition to being one of Asia's most financially successful artists.[2] In May, 2008, he set a world auction record when one of his contemporary Chinese art pieces “Mask Series 1996 No. 6” was sold for $9.6 million in Hong Kong.[1] Zeng has lived and worked in Beijing since 1993, and has been exhibited all over the globe in venues such as the Shanghai Art Museum, National Art Museum, Kunst Museum Bonn, Kunstmuseum Bern, Santa Monica Art Centre, and Art Centre.[1]
Zeng Fanzhi (1964- ) - 2000 Mask Series (Christie's Hong Kong, 2012)
Oil on canvas; 180 x 162 cm.
Zeng Fanzhi ( 曾梵志) (born 1964, Wuhan, China) is an artist based in Beijing.There are few Chinese painters whose careers boast the breadth and complexity as that of Zeng Fanzhi. From the earliest stages of his career, Zeng Fanzhi's paintings have been marked by their emotional directness, the artist's intuitive psychological sense, and his carefully calibrated expressionistic technique. Moving to the more cosmopolitan Beijing in the early 1990s, Zeng's art displayed an immediate shift, responding to his immersion in a more superficial environment, his seminal Mask series displaying the tensions between the artist's dominant existential concerns and an ironic treatment of the pomposity and posturing inherent to his new contemporary urban life. Throughout, Zeng's expressionistic techniques run counter to such techniques' conventional usage. That is, Zeng's representation of raw, exposed flesh or awkwardly over-sized hands is not an attempt at pure emotional expression, but instead play against the superficially composed appearances of his subjects, an ironic treatment of emotional performance as a metaphor for a lost self, of stunted self-realization.
He grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and he went to the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts.[1] There, he was largely influenced by Expressionism. Currently, Zeng is one of, if not the most popular artist of his era,[1] in addition to being one of Asia's most financially successful artists.[2] In May, 2008, he set a world auction record when one of his contemporary Chinese art pieces “Mask Series 1996 No. 6” was sold for $9.6 million in Hong Kong.[1] Zeng has lived and worked in Beijing since 1993, and has been exhibited all over the globe in venues such as the Shanghai Art Museum, National Art Museum, Kunst Museum Bonn, Kunstmuseum Bern, Santa Monica Art Centre, and Art Centre.[1]