Spanning an immersive expanse of tonal lyricism and resounding balance, Zao Wou-Ki’s 11.06.93 sits amongst an elite cadre of the Chinese French maestro’s Infinite period works and engulfs the spectator within its poetic abyss. Executed in 1993, the same year that Zao was awarded the Grande Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris and named Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur by French President François Mitterrand, 11.06.93 is borne by the apex of Zao’s career and signifies a pivotal period of artistic refinement and modernization.

Bathed in the undulating transparencies of light and shadow, 11.06.93 evokes an incandescent sky and a leaden sea, so intertwined in movement and form that the horizon line seems to reach up to rupture its own parameters. The compositional structure of the present lot echoes the middle segment of Zao Wou-Ki’s record-breaking, monumental Juin-Octobre 1985.

Zao’s return to China in 1972 propelled a period of deep introspection and pushed the artist to contemplate the underlying synergies between his own two cultures. In order to observe the painting’s Western roots, one looks to the Impressionists and their philosophies on colour. Such enchanting blue tones are the result of developments in optical science during the mid-19th century, and, in Monet’s later years, they became the poetic images of his lily pond, seen through his fading vision. These subtle threads to the past resonated with Zao Wou-Ki, who boldly applied these romantic, blue tones across the canvas. It was through studying Cézanne, whose works were heavily inspired by elements of traditional Chinese calligraphy, that Zao rediscovered the serenities of Chinese landscape and was led to transcend his artistic bearings and expression. With its ink-like chasms, 11.06.93 unveils Zao’s increased sensitivity towards the poetics of traditional Chinese painting.

When examining the painting’s Eastern origins, one must note that in 1981 in Taipei, Zao Wou-Ki reunited Zhang Daqian, a great master of Chinese painting. The inspiration behind Zhang Daqian’s iconic splashed-color landscapes hailed from the Western abstract paintings of the 1960s. Such landscapes established a revolutionary vernacular for traditional Chinese painting and Zao Wou-Ki was perhaps inspired by this invocation of traditional Chinese painting techniques and notions. Also returning to tradition, Zao Wou-Ki delighted in drawing from ancient Northern Song dynasty masters Dong Yuan and Ju Ran, Zao manifests the spirit of nature and crafts mountain like shapes in the bottom half of the composition, gathering a centralized locus of energy that emanates upwards from its outer ridges. An enveloping sense of immensity arises from the enthralling grandeur of the thrashing sea, which is heightened by small hatchings of soft magenta, beige and ivory that cascade throughout alternating pockets of light and shadow. Banks of fog, illustrated in lucid pastel hues, simultaneously melt and pull away from each other, creating illusionistic horizontal planes that belong to neither emptiness nor fullness.

The 1990s marked a turning point in Zao Wou-Ki's career, punctuated with major retrospective exhibitions of his works in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Mexico. It was a decade of recognition, as seen in the present lot which boasts stellar exhibition history. Among its journey through many museums, 11.06.93 was exhibited in 1996, when artist held a large-scale retrospective exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, titled “Infinite Image and Space.” It was also exhibited at A Retrospective of Zao Wou-Ki held at the Replica Handbags Museum of Kaohsiung in 1996. As Georges Duby wrote in the preface of the catalogue of the Replica Handbags Museum of Kaohsiung exhibition, it is truly at that t.mes that the artist found peace and reached the zenith of his art, as he was "freed from all the ritualised processes that bundled the act of painting in old China…" It was at this point when Zao Wou-Ki found himself between figuration and abstraction, tradition and novelty.

Zao’s thinking determined the inimitable spirit of his work. Emerging from Zao’s cosmos of captivating voids and sweeping rhythms, 11.06.93 casts off all visual restraints and represents a paramount epoch of Zao’s poetics. The venerated artist embraced the freeing terrains of lyrical abstraction and dedicated himself to the language of boundlessness, revealing himself fully in his art.

《11.06.93》是趙無極「無境時期」的精彩傑構，畫面渾然大氣，瀰漫著氤氳朦朧的幽藍色調，令觀眾彷彿身心都浸潤在情感充沛的詩意氛圍中。此畫作於 1993 年，同年，趙無極獲頒巴黎市大金章（Grande Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris），並在時任法國總統密特朗提名下，獲頒榮譽軍團司令勳章（Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur），因此，本作面世時正值趙無極創作生涯的巔峰時期，標誌著他的藝術造詣已臻化境，並且深受現代主義啟發。

空靈曼妙的光影明暗織出一片太虛幻境，輝白明朗的天空下是沉靜的海，在趙無極筆底誕生的動勢與形態緊密交纏，海天之間的分界線似要衝破天際。本作的構圖與曾經破紀錄成交的三聯屏作品《1985年6月至10月》的中聯有異曲同工之妙。

1972年，趙無極返回中國，外在環境的轉變促使藝術家自我省思，並開始發掘中、西文化相融互通的地方。對西洋畫尋根溯源，必然要深入了解印象派畫家和他們的色彩理論。例如，印象派作品中迷人的藍色調必須歸功於十九世紀中期的光學研究，而莫內晚年視力衰退時，藍色仍能映入他的眼簾，成為睡蓮畫的詩意元素。趙無極在作品中放膽使用浪漫的藍色，似有若無地延續著前人的脈搏。另一位對趙無極影響巨大的西方藝術家是塞尚，而塞尚深受中國書法啟發，趙無極則從塞尚的畫中重新發掘中國水墨裡的寧靜山水，蛻變出脫胎換骨的藝術風格。《11.06.93》有不少顏色深邃的部分，可見藝術家對傳統國畫的意蘊感受日深。

若要剖析本作的東方底蘊，須知1981年趙無極曾在台北與畫壇泰斗張大千見面。張大千從六十年代的西方抽象畫中汲取靈感，獨創潑彩山水，為傳統中國畫注入前所未見的新風，趙無極興許從這股新風中獲得啟迪。他尤其欣賞宋初名家董源和巨然，在《11.06.93》中著意回歸本源，養自然之氣，在構圖下半部分畫出酷似山巒的形態；氣韻凝聚其中，並經過隆起的山脊騰躍到半空。浩瀚之氣自海中升起，揉入溫和的紫紅、米白與象牙色，深淺有致，流動自如，彷彿向著觀眾撲面而來。輕柔粉潤的色澤在海面泛起氤氳霧氣，好像水乳交融，又似各自消散，形成海天交界，既實且虛。

九十年代，趙無極在北京、上海、台北和墨西哥各地舉辦大型回顧展，迎來藝術生涯的又一個轉捩點。那是他享譽國際的十年，《11.06.93》亦同樣有著驕人的參展記錄，包括1996年香港藝術館的「無極意象」，以及同年在高雄市立美術館舉辦的「趙無極回顧展」。史學家喬治・杜比（Georges Duby）在高美館展覽圖錄的序言中寫道，此時的趙無極終於找到心靈的平靜，藝術修為登峰造極，他「擺脫了束縛舊中國繪畫的儀式化過程」，在具象與抽象、傳統與創新之間找到自己的道路。

趙無極以獨特的思考方式，造就了作品中難以仿傚的意韻。他筆下的虛空和韻律孕育出一如本作般的恢弘鉅構，《11.06.93》超脫了所有視覺藝術的桎梏，代表著趙無極的美學巔峰。他把奔放不羈的抒情抽象手法揮灑得淋漓盡致，透過跨越界限的繪畫語彙，毫無保留地在畫布上抒發自己的內心世界。