A piece from Zeng's Mask series.

Critics say Zeng's early works like The Hospital series and The Meat series present the artist's lament about cruelty and the fragility of life, but Zeng says he only picks up his brush when he is really touched－and it is all instinctive.

Zeng completed these two series when he was still a senior at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in Wuhan.

"It was sensational to paint this bloody stuff. It wasn't acceptable as graduation work. At first, I handed in a draft sketch of Tibetan scenery as my tutor required, but I fooled him by handing in The Hospital Triptych finally."

Born in Wuhan in 1964, Zeng has a typical chivalrous and vagabond streak about him, much like the city he grew up in, which provided the inspiration for his early creations.

"I lived closed to a meat-processing plant and a hospital where I would go to the washroom every day. Those familiar scenes triggered my desire to paint."

The ongoing exhibition, which comprises more than 60 works, is Zeng's largest solo exhibition to date. It has been running at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing since Sept 19.

The exhibition is called Parcours, after a French word that means to stroll through.

The designer of the exhibit, Japanese architect Tadao Ando, says: "I came up with an idea where the audience can feel the in-depth world of the artist's creation if they see the artwork through a series of windows cut out of several parallel walls."

One of the pieces the audience sees through the windows is the artist's self-portrait.