Mask Series

Zeng Fanzhi's artworks are depictions of the social reality and collective destiny that the generation of post Cultural Revolution intellectual youth are facing. The artist keenly observed that the issue pertaining to survival is cruel yet common, which has inspired his earlier Hospital series. Deriving from that, Mask Series (Lot 226), painted in 1996, marks an important turning point in Zeng's artistic career. His previous expressionistic style and use of strong contrasting colours express a cold reality, exists here, albeit more reserved than in his earlier series, particularly in the manner he depicts the throbbing, pulsating hands of red flesh tones. The influence of German expressionism and Max Beckmann remains apparent; figures are left unfinished, their flesh raw and exposed. Zeng's concerns have matured along with his techniques, and here he has moved past his concerns with social perceptions, delving more deeply into the frailty of life itself.

There is an unusual air of tension in this painting. The protagonist in Mask Series who is wearing a yellow suit looks quizzically with a hollowed gaze and furrowed brows into the distance, his large hand engorged with red veins and awkward helmet-like haircut all serves as ironic counterpoints to the figure's desired self-presentation as a cool cosmopolitan sophisticate. The conflict is thereby derived from the sense of alienation in a new environment that is transformed into visual allegories in Zeng's unique art vocabulary. It is this ability to render profoundly a segment of history, to embody intellectual theoretical context and reflect the ethos of the time onto the limited canvas space in Zeng Fanzhi's works that has propelled and maintained in him in the forefront of Chinese contemporary artist of this generation.