Zao Wou-ki took up Chinese ink and wash painting in 1973. His artistic style started to vary gradually with the absorbency of xuan paper and fluidity of ink. By the 1980s, he was turning the countless white, black and grey layers prevailing in Chinese ink and wash paintings into blends and contrasts between warm and cold colours. 20.06.84 (Lot 7), executed in 1984, not only displays the drip and splash techniques of abstract paintings, but also the detailed and delicate layers of Chinese ink and wash paintings. Zao also reveals his shift from a focus on line setting in the 1960s to one dominated by planes. 20.06.84 brings together these revolutionary changes in Zao's artistic concepts and presentations.
20.06.84 features emerald, orange-yellow and yellowish-green colour blocks. Zao mastered the unique texture of oil paints - the in-between quality of transparency and opacity. The diluted paints flow as lightly as ink splashed on xuan paper. Through the combination of colours, in layers and at the edges, Zao builds a distance profound and boundless. 20.06.84 vividly displays his new concept on extensity. The colour blocks are neither an imitation of any three-dimensional setting, nor the re-presentation of traditional Chinese landscapes as in his works in the 1960s. In this unique piece, Zao frees himself from the conventional single-point perspective and aerial perspective. The old concept of extensity undergoes a breakthrough to a new concept of lights materialising in an emerging world, as in the Big Bang. Oscillating planes of colour, light and shade meet, collide and diverge, skidding across the surface and puzzling the viewer as to the distance created. The viewer can explore the structure of the universe from within the piece. 20.06.84 blends time and space through the free flow of oil paints to create a new conception beyond our conventional understanding of the universe.
Together with the converging yet departing colour blocks, delicate and intense black lines run horizontally at the bottom of the work, then curve to cast white light on the left to add movement to stillness. These black strokes, strong yet gentle, real yet imaginary, form the work's rhythm, like the natural patterns on the polished surface of marble, underlying the silent yet infinite power of nature. Zao started from Western formalism but sought the answer in traditional Chinese landscape painting. He traced the direct perspective to nature popularly applied by artists in the Tang and Sung dynasties, then varied it freely to express the existence of humans in the new extensity. When personal experience turns into creative elements, the point, line, plane are no longer static but transforming. In this remarkable work, Zao successfully constructs the foundation of Chinese landscape painting with unique elements to bring out a vibrant sense of life.