"Scholar's Rock" by Zhan Wang (b. 1962).

Stainless steel on a wood base.

Signed Zhan Wang in Chinese, dated 2006 and numbered 3/4.

Provenance: commissioned directly from the artist via Olivia Oriental gallery, London.

The ongoing series of Artificial Rocks, which Zhan began in 1995, is the main body of his sculptural work and one of his most celebrated projects.By creating stainless steel sculptures in the form of Chinese Scholar’s Rocks, traditionally used by Chinese scholars for meditating purposes, Zhan comments on our inability to retreat from the tangible world through absorbed contemplation. The indefinite mirrored images of the surrounding world reflected on the surface of the metallic Artificial Rock is a reminder of how far apart the human and natural world have grown and that a new futuristic material is needed to express the dreams and aspirations of modern China.