No. 203  is a piece by the contemporary Chinese artist, Hongyu Zhang and is from the ‘Human Landscapes’ series, featuring portraits painted as landscapes.

Hongyu Zhang's painting has its roots in calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting and maintains a preference for Indian ink, which he uses today with different techniques to explore new creative styles. Dipping a thick brush into various ink dilutions for various shades of grey, he draws in the portrait’s outlines, colours the large areas and shapes the face playing with shadows and lights.

What interests the artist is to capture his subject’s intimate essence: it is more a question of expressing a sensation, of interpreting a feeling (determination, introspection, weariness...) than faithfully painting a face’s features. The characters painted by Hongyu Zhang do not exist, they are in effect self-portraits: "All my portraits are me" he says. Influenced by KAFKA’s works, the viewer will find the influence of Egon SCHIELE and Chaïm SOUTINE in this series.

Lines constitute the fundamental unit of his portraits: "I work with lines" he says. "When I paint a portrait, I draw each line and each brushstroke using the principles of calligraphy. Each line has a life, and all together - with their strength, movement and rhythm, they make up an energetic space." This energetic space magnetically draws and holds us, inviting us to decipher this nervous writing that seems to have been invented to describe the depths of the soul.

The artwork is signed and sold with a certificate of authenticity. The specified dimensions do not include the frame. Dimensions of the framed artwork: 125 x 70 cm