Zhang Enli

signed in Pinyin and dated 01; titled in Chinese on the reverse

ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai
Acquired from the present owner from the above

This work is generally in good condition. There are minor areas with hairline craquelures, with the most obvious being on the bottom right corner and edge. There is minor wear in handling marks around the corners. Please note that this work has not been examined under ultraviolet light.
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The essence of painting
Zhang Enli

The unique language of Zhang Enli's paintbrush occupies an important and prominent place in the world of contemporary Chinese art. Zhang was born in 1965 and, like many other artists of his generation, did not begin to attract the art world's attention until the early 2000s. Unlike mainstream artists from the 1960s, Zhang eschews Chinese political ideology and the empty materialism of the nineties, and refuses to satirise or despair of current political realities; his focus has always been on his canvas and the tip of his brush, scrutinising the painting itself in search of the secrets to life and mortality behind everyday objects and spaces, shuttling to and fro between different realities. Like the art critic Gu Zheng wrote during the artist's 2010 solo exhibition, "At a time when it is fashionable in the Chinese art world to ascribe too much external meaning to works of art, [Zhang's] paintings, and every single stroke within them, flatly refuse to give you a straightforward statement or declaration. He wants his audience to recall and reflect with him the essence of painting, and with his colours and his lines helps the audience slowly explore the trivial matters of this world, which he depicts in such a simple yet sublime way."¹ Over the course of time, these paintings, focusing on senses and experiences and brimming with individuality and poetry, have thoroughly cemented Zhang's place in the art world. His works are acclaimed and collected by a number of international art galleries, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Born in Jilin in 1965 and a graduate of the Arts & Design Institute at Wuxi Technical University, Zhang Enli's earlier works were predominantly inspired by his first impressions of Shanghai. In 2000, Zhang held his first solo exhibition, "Dancing", at the ShanghART Gallery, where he displayed his early explorations of humanity and psychology in a style that was clearly influenced by German Expressionism. Since then, Zhang has been creating a series of still life paintings, including theContainer collection, which explored themes of loneliness and emptiness and eventually brought him fame. The boxes, bowls, buckets and other empty containers are all painted against lacklustre backdrops, and for the artist these objects are containers that bear the weight of everyday life. Containers are an extension of the body, and became his most important theme in the 2000s. Zhang says, "Departing from the simple notion of transforming the body into a container, you can imagine the body as a box, a sink, a tree, an empty room, right down to an ashtray and a packet of cigarettes. From the tiny details you can discover an object's essence or core, and this becomes the symbol of a 'container'."

Among these works, Container 2 from 2001 (Lot 775) has undoubtedly inherited expressionist elements from 1990s portraits, as well as developing a style of hinted symbolism in his themes for the new millennium. The use of colour in the Containers series is significantly brighter compared to his works from the 90s, with a preference for showing stark distinctions between black and white. It retains the wild strokes from Zhang's earlier pieces but with more subdued colouring than his later ones, and is replete with the ethereal strokes typical of Chinese ink paintings. There is an inherent separation here, giving us a clear glimpse of the transformation and transition in his creativity, and the consolidation of his thoughts. Container (Lot 774) was painted a year later, and now the background has turned to white. Although the use of colour is light, the strokes remain vigorous, while the treatment of the ink and the texture of the brush strokes are a far cry from his work the decade before. It did, however, presage the birth of his new classical style.

Fire (Lot 776) was painted in 2003, and shows how at the ease Zhang is with the brush. The heavy textures from before have been replaced with light oil paint, allowing the brush to flow more freely over the canvas, and the style ushered in a whole new level of praise for the artist. The deft strokes, akin to those found in classical Chinese ink paintings, truly help bring the fire's flickering flames to life. Fire is a somewhat elusive subject for a still life painting, but Zhang's unique style creates a vivid canvas, with flames so lifelike you can almost feel their warmth.

For Zhang Enli trees, like containers, are representative of the human body, and constitute his most traditional Chinese collection. He once said that, "When I was small, I liked to lie on the grass and look up at the sky, watching the leaves dancing in the breeze. I studied Chinese paintings from a young age; you can feel the rhythm of these paintings in the movement of the branches, and the scarcity of the leaves reflects the techniques used in Chinese paintings." ² Tree from 2006 (Lot 777) was Zhang Enli's prelude to his renowned Sky series in 2010. Using a single shade of paint, he calmly depicts the multitudinous layers of branches and the swaying of the leaves, seeming to imbue the static canvas with the energy of life. As he himself has said, trees have been an extremely important theme in his career, perfectly encapsulating how he applies traditional Chinese painting techniques to Western mediums and establishing his unrivalled position in the international art world.

These four paintings subtly reflect four different stages of Zhang Enli's creative process since 2001, and represent the artist's relationship with the boundless exploration between humanity and creative images, rendered even more intriguing by the hazy concept of form contained within.

1 "Zhang Enli's Paintings, Chapter 2" "Zhang Enli", Minsheng Art Museum, 2010

2 "Some thoughts from Zhang Enli", ShanghART website