Больничная серия 1994

Zeng Fanzhi's painting, Больничная серия, or Hospital Series, is rendered with oil on canvas and is a study in psychological tension. The palette is stark, a clinical mix of pale blues and fleshy reds that sets the stage for a scene of unsettling introspection. The physical quality of the paint is impossible to ignore. The figures are outlined with bold strokes, almost as if they've been drawn and then filled in with quick, gestural marks. Look at the hands of the seated figure, they're huge, almost deformed, rendered with thick daubs of paint that emphasize their unnatural, almost monstrous quality. Those hands become a focal point, and perhaps a metaphor for the artist's own struggle with the act of making, the way creative work can sometimes feel monstrous and consuming. This painting makes me think of Francis Bacon, another artist obsessed with the grotesque and the body's vulnerability. Like Bacon, Zeng isn't interested in beauty but in truth, in the raw and often ugly realities of human existence.