Born and raised in Wuhan, contemporary Chinese painter Zeng Fanzhi graduated from the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Wuhan, in 1991. During his youth Zeng was inspired by China’s ’85 New Wave movement and closely followed Western art and was particularly drawn to German Expressionism and French Romanticism. These influences led him to deviate from the Social Realism that he was taught in school, leading him to keenly observed objects and images from daily life. His visceral works demonstrate his concern and compassion for human existence and fragility. His figures look anxious or fearful, as if they are victims of their own roles. His early works during the rapid modernization 90s period not only provide a record of this period of profound social transformation, but also offer a glimpse of the collective memory of this era. His late paintings signify a shift in his focus from a formal concern with the representation of existential unsettlement to an interest in how we imagine ourselves interacting with nature.
