Feng Zhengjie. (Chinese B. 1965)
"Butterfly in Love No. 19." 2003. Oil on linen canvas.
Dimensions: 51.25 x 43.25 inches (130 x 110 cm).
This work is unframed and in excellent condition.
This is a rare masterpiece painting by Chinese Contemporary artist Feng Zhengjie. A figural tour de force, "Butterfly in Love" depicts two women, one wearing traditional Chinese dress, the other nude, standing on the edge of a lake pressed together in loving embrace, hand in hand, as if dancing . The title is a double entendre, referring both to this embrace two women share, as well as referencing the two small pink butterflies chasing one another at lower left. The day-glow palette of electric pinks and greens that define the iconic and on-going series by Feng place the subjects in an unknown time and place. The women themselves are depicted in the famous manner of Feng, supremely glamorous and idealized, and impossibly nostalgic and modern at the same time. Adding another surreal element is a small doll encased in a glass, again painted in neon pinks and greens, and placed upon a wooden table next to the women. This painting is not just a brilliant example of the style and manner that has made Feng so famous, but it is also one of his most sophisticated and intoxicating, as far as theme, composition, and narrative.
Feng Zhengjie was born 1968 in Sichuan Province, China. Originally a high-school and college art teacher in Sichuan, he came to Beijing in 1995 and quickly became one of the more recognized artists working in the new pop style of the contemporary period. Feng’s large canvases with their looming vacant female heads in bright turquoise, pink, black, white and red look more like advertisements than the prevailing overt political pop commonly seen at this time. In fact, these paintings were inspired by the new billboards that were now everywhere in an increasingly globalized and commoditized China.
Feng Zhengjie has been widely exhibited internationally and greatly collected in such countries as Canada, France, Norway and Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Germany, United States and of course all over China. His images can be found numerous museum collections such as The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna, Italy; Busan Museum of Modern Art, Korea; FC MOCA, Manchester, England; Musee Royal des Beaux-Arts du Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Musee d,Arts Contemporain d,Ivry-sur-Seine, France; The Estella Collection, New York, USA, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China; Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; and The Olenska Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland.
