Zeng Fanzhi

(Chinese, born 1964)

Zeng Fanzhi is a contemporary Chinese painter. Known for his Expressionist and psychologically probing portraits, he depicts human faces with vivid and lively brushworks that can at times border on abstraction. Zeng often will portray his subjects as seen through a dense thicket of branches, crowding and obscuring the canvas with a chaotic and stylized sense of malaise. Born in 1964 in Wuhan, China, he went on to study at the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, where he developed an interest in German Expressionist painting. Having lived through the Cultural Revolution, Zeng often focuses on this experience in his work. He critically explores the rapidly changing face of contemporary Chinese culture, as evidenced in his iconic painting Tiananmen (2004) of Mao. The artist was the subject of a major retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2013–2014, and in 2009 he represented China in the 2009 Venice Biennale. As a highly sought-after artist, his colorful painting Mask Series 1996 No.6 (1996) broke auction records in 2008, and became the highest-grossing work by a contemporary Asian artist. Zeng lives and works in Beijing, China.