Zou Tao is a peculiar painter. He paints people in situations thrust upon them but not of their choosing. In fact, the people he paints look unhappy, even miserable, about their lot in life, but they have no choice - they are forced to be in that position. For example, a quiet-looking boy has a fake pig’s nose attached to his face with a leather belt. The boy’s eyes are closed, as though he cannot stand the situation he is in, but it is beyond the boy’s control, and he is accepting the situation as peacefully as possible. This same boy is put in various situations - one with his dead cat, probably wishing his cat had not passed away. Other situations find the boy with piles of fecal matter, once even covered in a huge pile of it! Clearly, this is something that the boy would wish to avoid.

Situations beyond our control are common in life - we all have them to greater or lesser extents. Zou Tao has exaggerated reality to make a point: we cannot always choose everything we want in life; we cannot always live our dreams at every moment (as we imagine when we are children). Sometimes, or often for some people, we must do things that we do not choose to do; we must perform acts that we do not wish to perform. Even when taking Zou’s work “literally”, some people have to work in bathrooms, where they are surrounded by fecal matter. This would certainly not be anyone’s ideal situation, but many of us must do extremely un-enjoyable things in order to get by in life, whether it is to be able to buy food or to support a whole family, or even to work towards a particular goal. Zou Tao’s works contain a lesson about the human condition – we cannot always have what we want whenever we want. We are often forced to do things that we do not enjoy.

Zou Tao's unique concept and masterful painting skills allowed the artist to be selected as one of China's top 20 emerging painters at the Chinese Art Prize 2007. He was selected by a panel of international museum curators, are fair directors and other distinguished art insiders.