In the March of 2005, as spring was beginning to unfold upon his native China, Zhou Chunya traveled to Mt. Longquan with his wife Shuang Shuang, who he had married very recently, to enjoy the peach blossoms together. The long-familiar scenery took on a novel significance and attraction through the lens of newfound love, and having thus experienced the landscape in a fresh light, the artist after his return from the trip embarked on a new project now known as the "Peach Blossoms Series." This part of his oeuvre impresses through vibrant images inspired by mountainsides covered with flowering peach trees, brimming with the exuberant rhythm of budding life.

The lush beauty of a peach grove in full bloom has an almost lascivious quality about it, making the observer wistfully aware of the fleeting quality of florescence, and the ephemeral quality of all life. A successful artist and a sprightly man in his fifties, Zhou Chunya uses the strong appeal of the peach flower to explore and express his powerful amorous and romantic feelings for Shuang Shuang, a young woman in the spring of her life. Similar to Picasso, for whom carnal desires provided a constant source of artistic inspiration, Zhou does not deny the fact that his peach motifs have very straightforward sexual connotations. He once said, "All my paintings are about passion and romance. Lust is an integral part of being human, something we are born with. What is more, our erotic feelings and desires are a manifestation of vitality, of life in its prime. This is why we are so easily captivated by flowers such as peach blossoms: their beauty is a reminder of why life is worth living. They deserve our admiration."

This lot, "Peach Blossoms Series", belongs to the "Peach Blossoms Series" from 2007, and the focus is firmly on the interlacing flowers at the center of the composition. The deliberately blurry background is formed by a larger segment of peach grove, drawing the observer into the artist's visual and emotional world. In traditional Chinese culture, the term "peach blossom" is closely connected to love and femininity, while lines such as "In the spring month of March the peach trees blossom magnificently" and phrases like "a girl as lovely as a peach blossom" all serve to illustrate the richness of life, but also the charming appearance of a young lady and the nostalgic longing for one's sweetheart. Meanwhile, the expression "The color of peach blossoms is the purest kind of red" elucidates the enduring popularity of the flowers' dazzling pink shades-their poignant aesthetic impact remains code for romantic attachment and the animal magnetism between lovers.

To quote the artist again, "The colors of peach blossoms are both soft and intense, segueing into whiter shades towards the flower's rim and showing deeper crimson and rose tones towards its center. In China, these flowers are traditional symbols of both romantic and sexual attraction, representing the natural instincts of all life. Walking in a copse of peach trees I always feel full of zest and energy-my heart is bursting with joy, and my spirit brimming with delight. The countless hues of red stir up excitement and soothe the soul at the same time. I love to paint creatures 'in the throes of passion'. Covertly or overtly, all my work is about sex and love, because like the peach blossom, love and sex are reverberating with the primeval force of life."

In "Peach Blossoms Series", Zhou skillfully creates a sense of budding young love. The atmosphere of the painting is full of ambiguity and understated references to erotic fancies. The peach branches in the foreground are done in vigorous strokes strongly reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy, almost popping out of the picture with luscious energy against the intentionally indistinct backdrop, which is characterized by the out-of-focus smudginess of a shaky photograph. These visual effects remind one of the kind of Neo-Expressionist art that was popular in Germany during the time Zhou was studying at the Kassel Academy of Fine Arts, almost seeming like a nod to Gerhard Richter, one of the main proponents of New Expressionism. Zhou employs the exact same technique of a photographer who stresses his subject by keeping everything else out of focus. The extra conspicuousness thus bestowed upon the main motif works perfectly to underline the composition's overall elegance and sophistication, making this lot one of the artist's most accomplished achievements.

Surveying Zhou's career, we find that from the "Rock Series" and the early "Green Dog Series" to the more recent "Peach Blossoms Series", his basic mode of expression remains unchanged. If anything, the artist's free-flowing approach of directly converting his personal experiences into totemic images works even better - and has an even more "modern" feel - in works like Flowers. The style of the "Peach Blossoms Series" clearly has influenced some of the artist's other work, such as his "Red People Series" and his later Green Dog paintings. In the latter, the dog's fur is rather evocative of peach leaves, while its tongue is redolent of an arresting peach blossom. What is more, in some of his later Green Dog and Red People pictures, Zhou uses peach groves as a backdrop to accentuate his themes of pleasure, delight, freedom and vitality.

The peach blossom is a frequently employed topos in classical Chinese poetry, yet painters often shied away from treating this subject precisely because of its sexually charged connotations. Taking a more contemporary approach, Zhou Chunya sublimates the relatively raw eroticism of the subject by fusing it with other cultural sentiments and associations, subtly tempering the savage wildness of pure lust and transforming it into something higher with an even richer, deeper, and more refined appeal.