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EVENT DESCRIPTION
Co-presented by Poly Auction Hong Kong and SANTO HALL, curated by SANTO HALL institutional curator Lin Zi, the Post-80s Artist Zuo Yanfeng Solo Exhibition “OSTEO INDIGO” will be held between 21 and 27 March at Poly Gallery Hong Kong. This marks the artist’s first ever solo show in Hong Kong. Assembling 12 fine works by Zuo Yanfeng, the exhibition discusses the origin and the working method of his “Sentience” series in detail, which is also the first concentrated presentation of the artist’s works in this series. Coinciding with Art Basel Hong Kong, this show also exhibits headline lots of the Modern and Contemporary Art Sale in the Spring Auctions, endeavouring to connect with the global art community through in-depth exchanges.
“The blue sky gives me infinite strength because my bones are blue” – Cui Jian The Blue Bone The blue of the sky points to rationality, the future and the relentless pursuit of the ideal.
For Zuo Yanfeng, blue is not only an important part of the colour system of his painting, but also a colour that is most consistent with his temperament revealed at his age after being sharpened by hardships and life experiences. Zuo Yanfeng’s works do not attempt to interpret concepts, do not rely on other images as material, and give up all possibility of narrative. The artist mentioned that these works are not abstract but realistic for him. Facing his works, the viewers will find it difficult to describe the content of the painting in words but will realize that a certain emotion has entered the mind along with the artwork. Zuo employs colour and brushwork to build a complex space in the painting, which is a tortuous, organic and unfolding space. According to the artist, since the emotional and psychological reality he faces is so amorphous, he must construct more room alongside of the flatness of the painting to unfold this intriguing “Sentimental-psychological Landscape”. Zuo Yanfeng’s painting shows an extraordinary movement of things. Some intensely curved lines and scarcely employed pure colours in the painting seem to imply a violent vitality breaking out of the quietness, a slumbering ancient being is awaken, a primitive force wanders in the wilderness, an underground volcano is forming in an imperceptible way to reveal itself. The viewer’s gaze follows the development of stroke in the painting, sometimes experiencing tension, and sometimes being stretched in another part. The sentiment of viewer develops and recesses as their sights follow the movement of strokes up and down.
Zuo Yanfeng’s art is an organic construction of emotional-psychological landscape. This means that any part of the painting is connected to other parts and echoes to another parts. Zuo Yanfeng has an indisputable ability
to manage colour and space, which, on one hand, is related to his more than 20 years of artistic practice; and, on the other hand, is related to his ambitious endeavour to grasp the emotional-psychological truth. In the past three years, his way of looking at the world has quietly changed with the changes in the pandemic-related- social-environment, and finally drove him to abandon the expressionist techniques he had practised for more than ten years, and shifted to a style that is free from all cultural symbols and concrete imagery. In this path of work, he seeks to capture the emotional status quo only by colour and space. Zuo Yanfeng builds a highway between Clement Greenberg’s quote, “abstract is that of transcends of figurative” and the most real but elusive emotions in his mind at the present and eliminates all exits in between.
Blue gave him, this tall young man from the north, unlimited strength to pursue rationality; it also gave him the melancholy and bright temperament in the painting. Now 40 years old, as the vigour and passion of youth has been burned out, with the unique melancholia and romance of northerners. Zuo told me one day, “I wish my bones are blue.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER
Zuo Yanfeng was born in Changchun in 1981 and now lives and works in Beijing. Zuo Yanfeng’s painting organically constructs a psychological landscape by controlling the changes of colour and space. He tries to excavate and show the emotional and psychological truth, which requires him to build more space beyond the flatness of the canvas to make this complex “sentimental- psychological landscape” unfold. Zuo Yanfeng’s works do not attempt to interpret concepts, do not rely on any specific images, and give up all possibility of narrative.
