Oil on canvas

100 × 80 cm. 39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in.

Signed in Chinese and pinyin, and dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Asia
20 Sep 2007, Sotheby’s New York Autumn Auction, Lot 201
Private Collection, Europe
5 Oct 2015, Poly Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 197
Important Private Collection, Asia

Standing in Between Heaven and Earth, Emerged from All Things
The Rock Series of Zhou Chunya
In 1989, Zhou Chunya graduated from the Kassel Academy of Art in Germany. At the time, Chinese art movements like Cynical Realism and Political Pop were at all rage, but Zhou distanced himself from them and continued the painting style he gained from the study in Germany. Under the influences of Giorgio de Chirico's mysticism and the literati sensibilities of Shi Tao, Bada Shanren and Huang Binhong, Zhou developed the epoch-making Rock Series, a fusion of contemporary spirit and traditional sentiment, as well as the most pictorial and market-recognized painting in his artistic career.
Either from the East or the West, originality is the only thing worth seeking.
From mythology, literature to poetry, the Chinese Scholar Rocks appreciation has been passed down to the present. In Zhou’s Rock Series, this symbolic object of the noble hermit who remains aloof from the world is in constant visual transformation in a contemporary context, integrating with other literati imagery such as flowers and trees in flamboyant colors. Zhou rendered the stone and landscape images with rich textures and contrast of colors differentiated from traditional paintings, challenging the “orthodox visual presentation” with a delightful "reconstruction." These fantastic rocks of both natural forms and artificial features have turned into a pictorial “thinker” immersed in a tranquil space.
An experiment of ink painting
The present work, Rock Series, was created in 1999. Its sophisticated composition and unique color combination were the signatures of Zhou’s creation in the nineties. The free-hand brushstrokes and bright colors distinct it from other works of the Rock Series, marking a bold attempt of the artist’s expression of the theme.
With the adornment of a few white paints, the mountain rocks with a winding shape of an ancient tree appear ardent and vigorous. The light brown background encompassing the complex structures contains a strong visual appeal and reverses the "flattened" visual characteristics of traditional literati paintings. The stones in cyan and blue colors at the top are characterized by the flowing color of a transparent texture, not only unrestrained by the imagery of stone, but also forming integrity with the central image in red. The magnificent momentous in the upper part sets off the vivid color of the rocks below, as bright as the lava in the middle of solidification.
A Contemporary expression of Chinese landscape painting
Different from other works of this period, Rock Series is similar in composition to the artist's early masterpiece, Chinese Landscape (1993). In the picture, Zhou turned the dense and variegated texture of rocks into a "calligraphic" brushwork. The gradation of ink shade and the fluidity of the lines present an imposing grandeur, reminiscent of the calligraphic art of Inoue Yuichi.
The calligraphic brushwork in the Rock Series is closely related to the traditional techniques of Chinese landscape painting. For example, in Reading Stele Nest Stone, painted by Li Cheng in the Five Dynasties, the bald trees are striving to survive in the winter, with their branches stretching like crab claws and intertwining with each other. Its vigorous and powerful brushstrokes are parallel to the rocks depicted in the Rock Series, which conveys a poetic sentiment through majesty and marks Zhou’s experiment of ink painting at the end of the century.

Price estimate:
HKD: 2,200,000 - 3,200,000
USD: 280,100 - 410,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 2,596,000