Oil on canvas

120 × 120 cm. 47 1/4 × 47 1/4 in.

Signed in Chinese and dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Chambers Fine Art, New York
Important Private Collection, Asia

Under the Sky, Look at the Moving Clouds
Zhao Zhao's Translation and Innovation of Tradition

Born in 1982 in Xinjiang, Zhao Zhao studied for a bachelor's degree in the Fine Arts department of Xinjiang Arts Institute. Later he went to Beijing Film Academy for further study. After his graduation, Zhao Zhao has been working as an independent artist, boldly challenging reality, traditional ideology and social status by creating paintings, sculptures, performances and more. He is now an iconic Chinese contemporary artist born in the 1980s. He has held solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1 in New York, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Song Art Museum in Beijing, and National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. His works have been widely praised in China and abroad, and he won The Artist of the Year Award in the 13th annual Award of Art China announcement ceremony.

The artwork Sky No. 12 presented this time is one of Zhao Zhao's representative Sky series. The series' creation started in 2009, reflecting how the blue sky of Beijing at that time had become a luxury and distant memory during the long period of smog. For him, the grey sky blurs the passage of time. The blue sky in real life became one of the few surprises and healings, so for more than a decade, he constantly created the blue sky, creating dreams for himself and life.

Sky No. 12 is dominated by Prussian blue, which the artist considers “the colour between dark and dawn”. Like Chinese ink painting, Prussian blue can find a balance between black and white, which is very inclusive. He deliberately depicted a scene full of movement and drama in the sky in this work. The nebulous dawn of the fish belly white colour lights up the clouds on the right of the centre, like the intensity of the symphonic movement adds to the tension of the painting. The flowing strokes sometimes become short and rapid in the dark areas, as if to hint at the infinite kinetic energy contained in the dark, and sometimes stretch out in the light areas to create a peaceful atmosphere. The multi-level colours and the changing length of the brush strokes make the picture full of dynamic and rhythm in the continuous stretching, curling, gathering and drifting. Zhao Zhao's sky is not a real sight but a reconstruction based on his heart's actual memory and perception, which is both pictorial and ideographic, and both realistic and sublimated into a romantic and abstract conceptual representation. This work, just like beautiful prose poetry, unique and sincere, expresses the heart of the free and vigorous world, mysterious and charming. Fortunately, there is still the sky, bearing countless imagination and hope, as always guarding, listening to the symphony of human fate on the earth, to artists and viewers infinite spiritual comfort.

Price estimate:
HKD: 200,000 - 250,000
USD: 25,500 - 31,800

Auction Result:
HKD: 264,000