ZHOU CHUNYA (B. 1955)

“As I painted my Stone series I was also studying the landscapes of our literati painters. But rather than trying to understand the properties of the ink medium or the unique compositional forms of Chinese painting, I worked with my own creative goals in mind, to try to find those elements that seemed most strange or surprising to me. I made great efforts, almost compulsively, trying to capture the visual elements hidden within the natural properties of the stones. Amplifying and enhancing these elements, that was my form, and since the content of a painting is its visual presentation, there was no need to introduce any further interpretation or extension of these elements. This approach produced even more surprising and startling results than any stones that we would see or we could understand if we had instead taken some concept or method as our starting point.” - Zhou Chunya