ZENG FANZHI Untitled 07-10-8, 2007 oil on canvas 84.6 × 129.9 in (215 × 330 cm) The composition unfolds as a dense, turbulent field of interwoven linear gestures and layered pigment, forming a complex visual structure in which figuration and abstraction continually dissolve into one another. Beneath the surface accumulation of energetic marks, faint figurative suggestions emerge and recede, creating a sense of unstable spatial depth and psychological intensity. Zeng Fanzhi’s practice in this period is defined by a shift toward highly expressive linear systems that depart from the more restrained imagery of his earlier Mask series. His “chaotic line” approach integrates the spontaneity of expressionist painting with the structural discipline of calligraphic tradition, producing works that emphasise gesture, rhythm, and emotional immediacy over narrative clarity. Developed in the mid-2000s, this body of work reflects the artist’s engagement with processes of disruption and reconfiguration. The introduction of accidental gesture and non-hierarchical mark-making—partly associated with his adaptation to painting with his non-dominant hand—became a means of exploring instability as a creative principle. Within this context, references to cultural memory and historical imagery surface indirectly, embedded within dense painterly accumulation rather than explicit depiction. Untitled 07-10-8 exemplifies Zeng Fanzhi’s mature exploration of pictorial complexity, where controlled chaos becomes a method for negotiating memory, emotion, and historical residue. The work positions gesture itself as the primary carrier of meaning, articulating a space in which order and disorder remain in constant tension.
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