Artist: Zeng Fanzhi

Biography
1964 - Born in Wuhan, China
1991 - Grduated from the Oil Painting Department at Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, China
Lives and works in Beijing

An article in the International Herald Tribune details Zeng Fanzhi's artistic progression.

Hospital Series
1994
Oil on Canvas

"I lived next to the hospital and because my house didn't have any toilets I had to use those of the hospital everyday. What I saw there left a strong imprint on me," said the artist, who used these memories for his Hospital series, which portrays doctors and scared patients in operating theaters and emergency rooms.

His second series, the Meat series, was also inspired by everyday experiences. Passing by a nearby butcher, he often saw workers laying on top of the frozen meat to cool down and sleep during hot summers. The artist remembers intense, mixed emotions: "Some feelings were of hunger, because I was hungry in those days, others were of horror, as the blood of the meat would stain the people laying on them. I think this is why I use a lot of red in my work, it fascinates me," he said.

Mask Series 95 No. 8
1995
Oil on Canvas

In 1993, Zeng moved to Beijing. "In the mid-'90s, China was transforming very fast. Chinese officials started wearing suits and ties," he said. "Everybody wanted to look good, but it also looked a bit fake. I felt they wanted to change themselves on the surface, and these are the feelings that I represented in the earlier Mask series. Later on, the series used more vibrant colors; I think it makes people look even more fake, as if they are posing on a stage."

In 1999, Zeng started to paint people without the mask and by 2004 he had introduced helical strokes into his portraits, as evidenced in the exhibition in the Great Men portraits: five panels representing Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.

Little Boy
2006
Oil on Canvas

Most recently, Zeng has turned his interest toward landscape, which he is exploring in the Untitled (Night) series. Painting thick woods with or without people, Zeng is now using a technique of frenzied and animated lines.

"Sometimes I paint with two hands. Sometimes I use two brushes, sometimes four," explained the artist. "With this new technique, I create and yet I destroy. One of the brushes is creating, while the other three have nothing to do with me. I like such creation which happens by chance. Sometime I will loose control over the image, but after you loose control you look at what you have and you try to get it back again."