Artist Zeng Fanzhi depicts ‘zero-COVID’ after a lifetime of service to the Chinese state

SHENZHEN, China — In one painting, a child sits, mouth wide open, as a worker in white medical garb extends a long cotton swab toward her tonsils. In another, a masked officer and medical workers stand guard in front of an apartment cordoned off with ropes and seals reading “CLOSED,” as residents look on with frustration and despair.

These are some of the portraits that Zeng Fanzhi, 85, has painted to commemorate three years of China’s strict “zero-COVID” controls, which sparked nationwide protests a year ago. But Zeng, a retired architect living in Shenzhen, is not a critic of the measures, under which millions of people were tested, locked in apartments, or carried off to quarantine centers.

Zeng has spent much of his life in service to the Chinese state, designing monuments in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and coal plants for the Ministry of Coal. He’s a member of Shenzhen’s state-sponsored artist’s association and his paintings feature on stamps and win prizes.

The artist has a different perspective from the young protesters — one shaped by early years in China living through war and revolution, and later years witnessing decades of prosperity and growth. To Zeng, China’s adherence to “zero-COVID” controls was necessary, and its people’s adherence to it heroic.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping “says that artistic creation must be from ‘The People’s Standpoint,’” Zeng says, explaining his focus on ordinary people. “This means art should reflect the reality of people’s lives. The subjects of my paintings are aligned with this direction.”

___

Growing up, Zeng lived through some of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history. Born to civil servants who fled for Chongqing, China’s wartime capital in World War II, Zeng grew up moving from city to city, fleeing the invading Japanese and the Chinese civil war that followed.

The Communist Party’s victory in 1949 ended decades of strife in China, bringing some stability to the country. Zeng aspired to be an artist and took art school entrance exams in 1957, but failed twice. His parents encouraged him to study architecture instead.

Soon after, the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong, launched the Great Leap Forward, an ambitious but disastrous campaign to transform the impoverished country into an industrial power. Millions starved to death, and students across China spent time in political study sessions.

In 1962, fresh from college, Zeng was assigned to work for an…