UNTITLED

Zao Wou-ki's watercolor works during the 1980s, to a very great degree, developed out of his work in oils. The deep feeling in his highly expressive "broken" and "split" brushstrokes, and the colors he most loved, all derived from those oil works, while the special visual qualities of the watercolor medium add greater clarity in layering and a brighter, livelier feel. In his Untitled (lot 214), dating from 1980, Zao uses broad, soft washes of watercolor to balance very fine, strong brushstrokes, continuing his use of fresh, bright color and his pursuit of spatial and kinetic effects. Washes of blue and green extend inward from opposite sides to meet in the center of the watercolor paper, dense and luxurious as forest growth yet rippling like waves on a blue lake. In the middle and lower sections, the spreading washes of color, splashed paint, and short, streaky brushstrokes build up and merge, flickering and waving like water grass in a lake, with fish weaving through and among them.

Zao's beautiful interplay of color and brushwork is mostly concentrated in the lower parts of the painting, while mostly empty space with sparse brushwork occupies the upper part. Zao Wou-ki once noted, "White is no color at all, yet to the artist it is in fact the most challenging, and to carefully tease out layers in areas of white is what gives me the greatest feeling of success." By means of his color washes, Zao gradually transits the painting's hues to pale ochre until they finally blend into one with the white background, producing an ethereal and glowing space. This kind of empty space accords exactly with a technique often seen in Eastern ink- wash paintings, and the contrasts it creates in light and shadow, form and emptiness, and movement and stillness imbue the work with an appealing echo of traditional Chinese ink landscapes.