Artistic temper is nourished by life, is the direct result of an artist's individuality and his unique understanding and transformation of the cultural resources at his disposal. In 1994, a friend gave Zhou a German Shepherd named "Heigen" as a present, and the dog soon become the most important companion in the painter and sculptor's life. Because of Heigen, Zhou become more involved with the people and happenings around him, and before long he started an entire series of dog-themed paintings. So, while in a way the "Heigen" series came about by accident, Zhou was exceedingly fond of it, and even began to view it as an epitome of his artistic flair.

This lot, "Green Dog" was completed in 2005. In Chinese liubai fashion, the background is kept in plain white, and the dog is placed squarely in the center of the picture, imbuing the animal figure with additional vividness and force. The dog appears almost three-dimensional, like a sculpture, and the vivid green color seems to jump off the canvas. In the painter's words, "Some people feel that 'Green Dog' is one of my more iconic paintings, a catchy image, but that wasn't my primary intention. My original intention was to evoke the concise simplicity of traditional literati paintings, as well as create the sense of volume and depth usually associated with a sculpture. I believe the green dog is not so much a flat image as a 'sculpture on canvas." The dog's body is painted with a variety of different strokes—wrinkled, rubbed, and twisted—all of which mesh to form a tight yet complex web of churning color, full of what Zhou likes to term "the structural rhythm of undulating strokes." The result is a painting of powerful visual impact.