Working in the wake of rapid modernisation and urbanisation in China, Zeng began to paint city dwellers, always wearing masks so as to disguise human pain and agony behind a ‘socially acceptable’ face. Inspired by artists as diverse as Francis Bacon, Willem De Kooning and Max Beckmann, these works, known as the Mask series, straddle realism and imagination merged with a free and expressionistic style of painting.

Following a period of critical and commercial success, Zeng made the conscious decision to move away from formal figuration and rules guarding composition and representational painting, and entered into a new exploration of abstraction and expressive portraiture. In 1996 he embarked on a new series, removing the coverings from his subjects’ faces to reveal their raw emotion and the reality of their suffering.

Over the past two decades, Zeng has reacquainted himself with Classical Chinese painting, and art particularly from the Northern Wei to Song and Yuan Dynasties from the fourth to fifteenth centuries. Informed by these new interests, Zeng has moved further into abstraction, creating highly gestural landscapes that share the same dynamic energy of his portraiture. Over the past 10 years, Zeng has developed this series to investigate the complex tension between nature, wildlife, and humanity.

In parallel to his experimentations with ‘landscape’ painting, Zeng continued to forge ahead with a more experimental language in his portraiture studies: the We Series comprises paintings produced by a method that requires intense physical involvement: Zeng uses his entire body, stretching across the breadth of these large- scale canvases to apply color with multiple paintbrushes simultaneously.

Zeng Fanzhi has exhibited at a number of international museums. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Zeng Fanzhi Van Gogh’, The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (2017); ‘Zeng Fanzhi: Parcours’, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2016); ‘Zeng Fanzhi’, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2013); ‘Zeng Fanzhi’, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2013); ‘Zeng Fanzhi: Being’, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Hong Kong (2011); ‘2010 Zeng Fanzhi’, The Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); ‘Zeng Fanzhi’, The National Gallery for Foreign Art, Sofia (2010); ‘Zeng Fanzhi’, Fundacion Francisco Godia, Barcelona (2009); ‘Zeng Fanzhi: Idealism’, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2007); ‘Zeng Fanzhi’, Musée d’ art modern de Saint-Étienne, France (2007); and ‘i/We: The Painting of Zeng Fanzhi 1991’2003’, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2003). Zeng’s works are in the collections of several prominent institutions, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Francisco Godia Foundation, Barcelona; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka; Denver Art Museum, Denver CO; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco.