Zeng Fanzhi stands out in many ways from his peers in contemporary Chinese art, displaying an uncommon maturity both in terms of expression and technique. Primarily concerned with the inner world, his body of work reflects his deep psychological unease and search for meaning in a bewildering new world. While his contemporaries mostly focused on political and social issues in a newly open and emerging China, Zeng from the beginning of his career focused on the alienation and detachment of the individual in a frightening new environment. Zeng is not just unique in his themes, he has also been an experimental technician in painting methods and particularly in the great Chinese tradition of brush strokes and use of space. Both his universal themes of the pain of alienation and detachment and his masterful use of the paintbrush have brought him worldwide recognition and made him one of the most important of Chinese contemporary artists.
This lot “Untitled (triptych)” depicts wild grasses growing luxuriantly around a dark brooding mountain and the lines are intricate like a densely concentrated network. Zeng has moved away from his earlier expressionism and has moved closer to the abstractness and spiritualism of traditional Chinese art. The grasses are strong and chaotic in dark colors, almost net like, or a wild plant in our nightmares entangling and ensnaring us. The dark colors of the brooding mountain add further to a sense of uneasiness. However, the white and reds of the sky bring a sense of peace and calmness. While our emotions and feelings as represented by the grasses are chaotic and frightening, they are not something we need to repress or run away from. As night falls, the grasses are strong, vigorous and vibrant perhaps like our deepest emotions and thoughts.

Zeng’s masterful brush strokes add to the heightened sense of power and emotion. They are indicative of his free flowing and subconscious painting style, allowing his moods and emotions to flow onto the canvas. Zeng uses two brushes held in one hand between different fingers to create his chaotic, wild strokes. Just as with a pair of chopsticks, one brush is held firmly with three fingers while the second one moves freely between two fingers. The first one creates deliberate thought out strokes, the second follows, freely creating whatever lines it wants. The first stroke is like our conscious, controlled thoughts, the second stroke like our wild, uncontrolled emotions allowing Zeng to create an abstract landscape of our inner psychological state. This psychological state is further represented by the peaceful and calm sky juxtaposed with the dark, mysterious hill covered in wild vigorous grasses. Calmness and turmoil are wonderfully rendered. Zeng’s brush technique has created a new representational language combining the logical and irrational. The logical mind sits side by side with the unconscious, intuitive and emotional mind, just as the two brushes sit side by side in the hand. The deep linear marks stroked into the surface of the painting draw attention to the surface of the painting and the chaotic nature of the grasses. This is highly reminiscent of the abstract calligraphic representational techniques of ancient Chinese art. His oeuvre charts a major exploration of the emotional and psychological state of the artist in an alienating and chaotic society. Zeng’s unique voice is the true voice of an artist as he expresses his innermost turmoil and deep emotional disturbances.