ZHONG CHENG

Zhong Cheng 2024 Autumn Auction「Modern And Contemporary Art」

  • Zhong Cheng 2009 Autumn Auction
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    ZHENG ZAIDONG (b.1953)

    Blue and White Porcelain of Salver

    1992

    Oil on Canvas
    106×79cm

    Singed Zheng Zaidong in Chinese and dated 1992

    Estimate TWD 180,000-280,000
    USD 5,600-8,800
    HKD 0-0

    Hammer Price TWD 177,000
    USD 5,531
    HKD 0

Provenance：

Illustrated：

Exhibition：

Exposition：

In the early stage, “divergent strong self-feelings” were used as the starting point. The artist painted portraits of his father, mother, wife, daughters, and himself. The paintings projected his self-image or to a certain degree “self-portrait”, conveying simple and direct emotion.

Formerly pursuing a kind of personal integrity, the Taipei man in the 1990’s realized under the ever-changing urban cultural landscape how can a person maintain integrity? Whatever the answer, the body of the people Zheng Zaidong portrayed was as fractured and separate. He does not completely obliterate the old self-image, but in fact just covers up the old self and retains the part of the head or hands. By this partial painting and cover-up, Cheng manipulated the vagueness of his “self.”

In the transition from expressionism to the classical rational thinking, Zheng Zaidong’s self-thinking pervaded his creative life and has become a stubborn habit.

 

The higher the historical consciousness is, the deeper classical artistic tradition is involved and the stronger the sense of loss and loneliness arising from exploring the inner self. The face created in the “Blue and White Porcelain of Salver” is painted white with dull eyes that are nervous and at a loss. He puts his own head in a blue and white plate, symbolizing an ancient Chinese tradition; the shoe on his head in the formal setting of the Chinese traditional landscape means exile and wandering without any idea about where to go.

“Zheng Zaidong continuously presents his own life stories by painting himself. It would be more accurate to say that he tries to understand himself and his position in relation to others than to view it as narcissism.”

 

Taiwan’s well-known literary critic Yang Zhao

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