Looking for Females - Notes on Zuo Zhengyao's Creations

Wang Lin

In the artistic creations that Zuo Zhengyao started in mid-1980s, there has always been a theme depicting the images of females. During the period, he also finished the ceramic installations such as Sky Nine Earth Eight and paper installations such as Waste Book by taking the mahjong and invoices for references, which are not related to the subject of females. However, it is in conformity with his consistent way of artistic thinking

as he has taken the symbols of Chinese cultures and

folk customs as a starting point and sought after the

possible methods to express both the traditions and

the current realities. By quoting the Zen principles

to explain the relationship between the good and the

bad, the man and the Buddhist and the religion and

the secularity, his figure paintings from the Eighth

Five-year Period are basically categorized as the

meticulous paintings. However, the artist has given his

paintings certain surrealistic meanings by deleting the

background and simplifying the objects same as what

he did in his painting, Return. The plastic forms were

regarded similar to the paintings of Wang Guangyi,

Geng Jianyi, which were characterized by simplicity,

coldness and deep indulgence in rational thinking. The

mere difference was that Zuo Zhengyao's paintings

were color paintings on paper. In early 1990s, such a

way of thinking was transformed into an "imagery

expression in a dual way". As a matter of fact, they

became the decorative paintings by integrating the

rural background with folk styles. From another

perspective, the changes taking place through his

artistic practices became more thought-provoking.

The first is the reverse-and-adverse compositions

which laid a foundation for his conceptual inclinations

in his later creations. The second is that the graphic

form of paper-cutting images has been changed into

a simplified one, which has not only been connected

with the later relief works, but also changes the images

of rural girls into the ones of urban females. In his

works, the transcendence and the perfect round forms