5/10/24 Awareness Blog Post -- Zeng Fanzhi

I became interested in contemporary artist Zeng Fanzhi with my first encounter with a piece of his work, which was Van Gogh III, a painting of the long deceased "great artist." When Fanzhi was asked about why he made such a piece, he stated that in the process of creating a piece of work around a famous artist like Van Gogh, he gained a deeper understanding of his creative process. In the piece, he attempted to re envision the feeling Van Gogh felt when creating a self-portrait of himself. This re creation experience is a form of respect between artists, and I thought this was a really interesting and cool way to pay respect to one the greats, through the process they did all their life that they would truly understand.

Zeng Fanzhi, Van Gogh II, 2017, oil on canvas, 39 ⅜ × 39 ⅜ inches (100 × 100 cm)

Zeng Fanzhi, Van Gogh III, 2017, oil on canvas, 39 ⅜ × 39 ⅜ inches (100 × 100 cm)

Outside of these sets of work, Zeng Fanzhi is a contemporary artist situated in Beijing, China. Following the cultural revolution in the 60s and 70s, he was carried by the new wave of art in China's '85 New Wave movement, which saw Chinese artists seeking a new, unique language for themselves. He was influenced by artists like Willem de Kooning and Edvard Munch, leading him to stray from social realism and instead focus on picturing everyday life, oftentimes highlighting the fragility of human life.

Hospital Triptych No. 1, 1991, Oil on canvas, 180 x 460 cm