Another thing I know is that I enjoy painting more and more, that I've got more to say, with the ever-present fear of repeating myself. I paint my own life but I also try to paint an invisible place, that of dreams, somewhere where one feels in perfect harmony, even in the midst of agitated shapes or opposing forces.

Every picture, from the smallest to the biggest, is always a fragment of that dream place.

From his native China, which he left at the end of the 1940s, to the Paris of his dreams --the Paris of Montparnasse, where all the artists lived--, Zao Wou-Ki has followed a course marked more than anything else by his rejection of an academicism of which he was nevertheless an outstanding pupil. Admitted to the school of fine arts in Hangzhou at the age offourteen, the young painter worked tirelessly, both in his country and later, when he had settled in France, to break free from the mould of his training, taking his inspiration from Cdzanne, Picasso and Matisse. From here on he searched for a style of his own. He was helped in this resolve by the work of Paul Klee but also by Henri Michaux, who provided him with a bridge between his origins and his new existence. Zao Wou-Ki is impregnated by China and at the same time impregnated by Western art; his universe is that of a man born of two traditions.

In 1954, the choice for abstraction marked the birth of a unique artist who from that moment would no longer live divided between his cultural heritage and his painting. 'I paint my own life but I also try to paint an invisible space, that of dreams', he says. In canvases of an increasingly gigantic format, colour seems to dominate over everything, either prodigiously applied or else economised as though with misgiving. The artist paints 'what can be understood without actually being seen', not hesitating to turn once more to ink, he paints silence, black and white, fullness and emptiness. Today, internationally acknowledged, Zao Wou-Ki continues his search in the framework of unflagging creativity.

Besides of the Josd Frdches essay, the texts in this book have been taken from the book Autoportroit, published by Zao Wou-Ki and Francoise Marquet in 1993, as well as from an interview with Michel Ragon (1994) and another with Pierre Schneider which appeared in the series 'Dialogues du Louvre'.

Breath and Soul

JOSE FRECHES

Writings

ZAO WOU-KI

Autoportrait

Interviews

Interview with Zao Wou-Ki

MICHEL RAGON

Louvre Dialogues

PIERRE SCHNEIDER

Biography

Selected Bibliography