Zhou Chunya is widely considered to be one of the most important and original artists in China today. He trained in the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts between 1977 and 1982 and travelled many times to neighboring Tibet with compatriot Zhang Xiaogang . During this time Tibetans were the most prevalent subject matter in Zhou’s work. The artist later became greatly influenced by impressionist painting while working towards his master’s degree in German in the late 1980’s. Upon completion of his degree, and having returned to his homeland, the artist became deeply interested in traditional Chinese painting techniques. Thus we can attribute Zhou’s unquestionable originality to a variety of influences and the artist’s skillful combination of a number of styles.
Throughout his career, Zhou Chunya has maintained his originality and unique style. He has remained uninterested in overtly political or cultural themes and thus his paintings lack the familiar iconography that seems omnipresent throughout many of his contemporaries’ works. Zhou is similarly uninfluenced by prevailing trends or movements within the art world. While the majority of his peers were fixated upon Cynical Realism and Political Pop, Zhou was content to continue working on his Floral and Green Dog series. The Green Dog series of paintings, started in 1997, is undoubtedly Zhou Chunya’s most popular group of works. This series, painted over more than a decade, features dogs in myriad poses painted in unlikely shades of greens and reds. The series is a prime example of Zhou’s introverted artistic mindset in that his inspiration came from his own pet dog, Heigen. His Green Dog paintings underscore the artist’s abilities as he succeeds in capturing all of the subtle nuances of his subjects time and again. The current lot, Green Dog No. 3, bears all the hallmarks which we have come to associate with the series. The sole focus of the painting is a large dog, possibly a Great Dane, seated in a classic canine pose. Typical of Zhou’s subjects, the dog’s head is slightly oversized, giving a faintly cartoonish quality to the work. This quality is of course enhanced by the predominantly green palette which the artist employs. Despite this unlikely color scheme however, the dog’s pose is captured with incredible accuracy, a credit to Zhou Chunya’s unique painterly abilities.