Editor’s Note: This feature is part of Masters at Work, a new series that goes behind the scenes with leading creatives to discover the source of their inspiration. See more here.
CNN
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“I like to reinvent myself,” says Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi, reflecting on his 30-year career.
It’s a bit of an understatement for a man who, at 52, has created a body of work so rich and diverse it spans five distinctly different periods.
Widely considered one of China’s greatest living contemporary artists, Zeng is known for slow, thoughtful pieces that reflect his deep study of Western and Chinese arts and the society around him.
Zeng says each painting takes about a month to complete. But before he lifts his brush, he spends weeks preparing himself both physically and mentally.
02:20 - Source: CNN
Inside Zeng Fanzhi's stunning new show
“I must restrain from interaction with outside distractions and place myself in a quiet environment,” says the artist, who often paints to classical music and draws inspiration from his carefully manicured Chinese garden.
“Only after that can I become imaginative and think about painting.”
Although he may be more known among the public for his “Mask” series of paintings (the most famous of these, “The Last Supper,” famously sold for $23.3 million in 2013) – his work has changed dramatically over the course of his career.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi made global headlines in 2013 when one of his works, "The Last Supper" (2001),
sold at a Sotheby's auction for $23.3 million. However, the prolific artist has been producing works of art for many years as his newly-opened retrospective -- "
Zeng Fanzhi: Parcours", presented by the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing -- shows.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
Although best known for his "Mask" series of paintings, Zeng's work has undergone numerous reinventions over his thirty year career.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
Co-curator of the exhibition and director of the UCCA in Beijing, Philip Tinari, says despite the eye-popping prices Zeng's works attract, they wanted the exhibition to focus on art, not money. "One thing we are trying to accomplish with this show is to give a sense of this artist beyond the discussion around the market for his works," he says.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
Zeng studied art at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in China in the late 1980s and began a career in advertising after he graduated. He quit his job and moved to Beijing to become a full-time artist in 1993 after some of his early works were purchased by an influential art collector.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
A year after he arrived in Beijing, Zeng started to produce his iconic "Mask" series, paintings that reflect the alienation he felt while settling into the city's newly-rich, rapidly changing society. Zeng has said that he believed people in the Chinese capital hid their true identities from each other and themselves.
Zeng Fanzhi Studio/ucca
The exhibition "includes about 60 works," says Tinari. "The earliest comes from 1990 and the most recent were just completed last month, in the studio, and together they give us a sense of an artist and how his career has progressed."
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
"He's very unique among Chinese artists in that he didn't get attached to a specific motif, or even style, and he's kind of continually reinvented himself over these years," Tinari says.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
This painting is from the artist's "Meat" series. These paintings are among some of his earliest works and were inspired by the outdoor butcheries that surrounded his then-home.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
"Putting together a show like this is always an extended exercise in persuasion because you have to convince collectors and institutions to temporarily part with objects that are very dear to them," says Tinari.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
"Together the show is a portrait of him as an artist, but we see in these portraits his relationships with people he knows, his dealer and some of his collectors, his friends, himself, but also with figures from art history, with whom he feels a special connection -- so specifically people like Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon," Tinari says.
Krause, Johansen
"I think at the end of the day it's really about a person trying to make sense of his own position in relation to society but also to the history of that society, and to this number of long and kind of grand traditions of cultural output," Tinari adds of Zeng's introspective approach to his art.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
"The idea of the artist reinventing himself, finding a new footing, a new language, a new set of questions, is what keeps the work urgent, relevant and connected to its historical moment," Tinari explains.
zeng fanzhi studio/ucca
More recently, Zeng has started to paint landscapes that incorporate visual forms drawn from traditional Chinese culture, especially classical gardens.
Zeng Fanzhi Studio
"Now interestingly, in the most recent works, he's kind of turned away from that entirely and doubled down on the long and grand tradition of Chinese painting," Tinari says.
Zeng Fanzhi Studio
"Zeng Fanzhi: Parcours" is showing at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China from September 19 to November 19, 2016.
From intricate portraits and dark landscapes to newer drawings etched on handmade paper, Zeng’s works are less the result of reinvention and more a progression of his own learning and philosophy.
“Each period of my works has taken a different direction. My own thinking changes,” Zeng says. “My works have to originate from the depths of my heart.”
Watch the video above to see Chinese master artist Zeng Fanzhi at work in his studio in Beijing, China.