Oil on canvas

149×120 cm. 58 5/8×47 1/4 in

Signed in Chinese on bottom right
PROVENANCE
4 Apr 2011, Sotheby’s Hong Kong Spring Auction, Lot 973
Private Collection, Asia

Writing the
Fable of Life
Kahn and Xi’er
by Zhou Chunya
When Zhou Chunya returned to China in 1993, he came across a lovely dog kept by the elderly artist Cen Xuegong and took a keen interest in having one himself. He later bought a German Shepherd and named him Heigen to commemorate the time he spent studying art in Kassel, Germany. From that point forward, dogs became a part of both Zhou Chunya’s life and artistic career. “Prior to raising Hagen, ” he once remarked, “I wasn’t very fond of dogs. After I got him, though, we would eat and take walks together, and whenever I painted, he would always sit by my side and watch my every move. Through him, I became fascinated with dogs, the most loyal and loveable animal in the world.” Beginning with Heigen, the dogs that Zhou painted became eternal memories filled with genuine, heartfelt emotion. Following certain developments, the Green Dog series, which embodies a fusion of imagination and reality, was ultimately born, allowing people to see and contemplate the mammal through a new lens. The success of this series also cemented the important position Zhou held in the development of China’s contemporary art scene.
Well recognized Chinese art critic Lv Peng has made connections between Zhou Chunya and his Green Dog Series in article Green Dog Narration： “Dog is latent need of the artist. This life who represents non-awareness and unconsciousness that compare to human beings, is gradually becoming a longing for people who live in contemporary generation”. In fact, this attached life who understands human beings thoroughly would provide comfort to us, and give us an unsophisticated vibe out of the dulled and polluted society.
Kahn and Xi’er was completed in 2007. As is evident from the painting, after going through a period of grief and commiseration, Zhou Chunya gradually accepted the fact that Heigen had passed away and turned his sadness and memories into creative inspiration. In his painting, Zhou uses wild green oil colors to portray two dogs against a white background. While the dogs differ in size, they both wear a collar around their necks and stand erect while gazing toward the left side of the canvas, as if eagerly awaiting the return of their owner. The hound on the right has its mouth open, its pink tongue sticking out. This not only makes the painting’s colors appear more harmonious, but also reveals the depicted dog’s abundant vitality and quick-wittedness.
It is worth noting how Zhou Chunya lets the oil colors flow wantonly downwards on the canvas. It is evident that his creative style is, to a certain extent, affected by Western expressionism, and this also demonstrates his subconscious use of calligraphy-esque brushwork. The artist has doubtlessly made a conscious departure from the pursuit of the reproduction and realism of traditional aesthetics. Instead, he imparts a sometimes-introverted, sometimes-uninhibited personality to the special visual symbol of these “green dogs” and, using this as a basis, allows artistic expression and genuine emotion to merge into one. When looking at these two dogs, it is as if the viewer can understand the pure, complex meaning of life and existence and release his or her own inner feelings, thus experiencing the fable of life that the artist is seeking to express.
“The Green dog is a symbol, a signifier that implies the loneliness of modern people and the dangers amongst them. Actually, the green dog is a symbol for myself in certain way, its footprint is the reflection of my real living background and cultural characters.”
—— Zhou Chunya

Price estimate:
HKD: 3, 800, 000 - 4, 800, 000
USD: 487, 200 - 615, 400

Auction Result:
HKD: --