Chu Teh-chun: The Unexpected

“Blue is the most spirited colour in nature, it is filled with poetic subtlety as well as all-encompassing amiability, blue belongs to all life, and the earliest life was born from blue – in the ancient oceans.” – Chu Teh-Chun

CHU TEH-CHUN (ZHU DEQUN, 1920-2014), *L’Imprévu (The Unexpected)* signed in Chinese, signed and dated ‘Chu Teh-Chun. 93.’ (lower right); signed in Chinese, signed, dated and titled ‘L’Imprévu 1993 CHU TEH-CHUN’ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 73 x 90 cm. (28 3/4 x 35 3/8 in.), Painted in 1993, Image Source: Christie’s

“In 1990, Chu Teh-Chun moved to a large studio in Vitry-sur-Seine, just outside of Paris. This high-ceiling studio surrounded by large windows exploited natural day light as main source of lighting, and thus encouraged him to further explore and perfect his artistic language through colour and lighting. In order to capture such fast-changing and fluid light, Chu created a translucent paint that rendered an ethereal brushstroke, particularly tangible in L’Imprévu (The Unexpected). Here, a multitude of strokes emerge from a central core, with different pace, intensity and thickness…The early 1990s were marked by difficult times, in particular the Gulf War, which deeply affected the painter. His work from this period varies from darkness to brightness, and L’Imprévu (The Unexpected) can be interpreted as a message of hope, where brightness, clarity and balance suddenly push darkness away and take over the composition to create a powerful bursting of energy and controlled tension.”
READ FULL ESSAY: Christie’s