Zeng Fanzhi
Zeng Fanzhi is known for his elaborate incorporations of Western and Eastern traditions within his artistic portraits. His artwork exhibits Expressionist styles and techniques, manifesting through meticulous and vibrant brushwork. It is both profoundly expressive and provocatively sensational, imbued with tones of violence, tension and even supernaturality.
Early Life and Influences
Zeng was raised up in the district of Wuhan in China during the time of the Cultural Revolution. While he was growing up, Wuhan experienced great prosperity in trade with Western counterparts, emerging as one of the most thriving cities in China. This also meant that Western influences are prevalent around Zeng, who went ahead to study European Expressionism in great depth as the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts.
From 1981 to 1991, Zeng was particularly interested in German Expressionism and French Romanticism with artists such as Max Beckmann, Willem de Kooning, and Edvard Munch being great influences in his art studies. What drew him towards such influences mostly was their proclivity to turn their experiences in times of social change into expressive artwork.
Zeng’s influences were monumental in defining his own art technique. Having been raised in the time of the Cultural Revolution, he had only learned about Social Realism but through his studies on European art, Zeng discovered his own identity. This change is vividly depicted in his 1994 Hospital Series. The group of paintings presents a grotesque environment of mutilated bodies with banal backgrounds. The pictures represent something both repugnant and distant, where people are crowding behind in line to get treated while the doctor in the foreground appears indifferent to the distressed man kneeling over a mangled corpse. This painting is meant to highlight the cavalier bureaucracy which shows no grief or sorrow to the pained and suffering citizens, much of whom believe their afflictions will be treated by an uncaring authority.
The paintings might seem disturbing and too visceral for one to tolerate, but this was Zeng’s purpose in painting. His use of pinkish shades while coloring the flesh and a vibrant red for the blood is deliberately used to emphasize on the slaughtering of the human body. It is a gross depiction of the fragile state of human existence, where they depend on the white-cloaked government which has never felt pity or empathy for them.
Pessimism Towards the World
Zeng’s Hospital series elevated his name in the art world, and he gained further popularity through collections such as the Mask and Abstract Landscapes. These were paintings he had done to embody the spirit of his pessimism towards the world and personal rejection of society and culture.
After finishing his education at the Hubei Academy, Zeng moved to Beijing to live on his own. However, this change was difficult for Zeng who grew wary of his new and unfamiliar environment. He felt uncomfortable by how hastily society was beginning to modernize and he was unable to conform to its rapidly developing standards and ideas.
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This led to him creating a series of subversive paintings that depicted his sense of alienation and disparity with the rest of the world. The Mask collection shows a number of motifs that commonly appeared in Zeng’s previous paintings, being distanced away from the main figures in the artwork. Furthermore, the figures are painted with masks and this obscurity represents Zeng’s consternation of society.
Unlike the Hospital series which showed great angst and hatred towards the government and society, the Mask series shows another kind of emotion. It is more drawn-back and apathetic. The distancing of the figures and the focus on the mask shows how Zeng feels more at peace from solitude against the world.
Other Famous Artworks by Zeng Fanzhi
Essentially, Zeng’s paintings undergo a significant revision and refining after his success with the collections entitled Hospital and Mask. He begins to use a softer color palette and relinquishes the vibrant and unnerving tones present in his former works. Additionally, his characters begin to relax through nonchalant positions and expressions, such as keeping their hands in their pockets or lying down over a cluster of flowers with pensive moods.
This change identifies a personal change within Zeng, where he shows a greater understanding of the world. He no longer feels hatred or vents out at society, but rather remains calm and thoughtful through his brushwork. He also integrates more symbolism than he works with expressionism.
Despite this change, Zeng’s most famous artworks are formed through his expressionist styles. He uses abstraction as the main character in his paintings, and the work on Tiananmen and We n:2 exemplifies this.
We n:2 is a portrait, but it comes at a very magnified look on a person’s face. Zeng uses ringlets to create detailed patterns that form the entirety of the face’s features, transfixing viewers to the painting. It is both articulate, intimate and distorted.
Similarly, Tiananmen shows a famous portrait of Mao which is deliberately distorted by Zeng. The name, which is a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest and extrajudicial massacre by the government, instantly identifies this painting as a form of irony. The red and yellow colors which are haphazardly composed over Mao’s face depicts courage, but courage against a future that is uncertain and blood-stained. The colors fill up the portrait with a sense of anxiety but also optimism. The looming figure of Mao in the background represents his domination over Chinese culture and consciousness.
Zeng in the Current Times
There have been various exhibitions and auctions which have sold Zeng’s art pieces for over millions of US dollars. In October 2013, his rendition of ‘The Last Supper’ was sold for about 23.3 million dollars in USD, marking a new record for Asian contemporaries in the art world.
Currently, Zeng is a multi-millionaire artist still residing in China. He was commissioned to paint a piece by the Louvre in 2014 and four of his works have been exhibited in the Van Gogh Museum in 2014. His paintings have bridged between culture and history while also providing catharsis to humanity as one art critic notes ‘(Zeng’s works) explore universal humanity through his personal experience.’
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