Zhou Chunya's paintings are richly endowed with the narrative tendencies of Expressionism. The delicate balance of elements and contrasts that he achieved was a state that even master painters of the traditional Chinese expressive style may not fully grasp. In the early 1990's Zhou began his flower and vase series of experimental themes. These paintings of flowers and vases were a radical departure from accepted norms, being made up of a vaguely discernible vase shape surrounded by dynamic lines and blocks of colors that serve as the motif for flowers. This series was the exact point where he began experimenting with all kinds of images.

At first glance (or from a distance) his works seem like great splashes of ink in the expressive style, somehow enthusiastic and sensual all at once. Upon close examination however the variations in thickness of colors emerge, the forceful strokes revealing glimpses of points, lines and colors all bound up in a complex pattern. The main body's consciousness leaps out at you and you see that it's a passion-filled Expressionist oil painting. The works are filled with tension and passion – unrestrained and relaxed, bold and expansive, thick and confronting – but never losing their refinement, reserve or suppleness. The work itself appears to hold itself together against forces that threaten to send it flying in all directions, giving the imagery a restless vigor. The brush strokes flow across the canvas like a narrative with each contact injecting variations of color and tone into the composition, creating a diversity of textures out of apparent simplicity. Everywhere you look is bound up in the elements of the artist's art so that you find yourself lost in a mysterious world of magic.

Zhou has always been searching for a closer and more natural relationship with nature. He has a great love of plants and animals because of their purity. The images of flowers symbolize perfection and by extension love and sex. Under the artist's brush, the vivid flowers represent the essence of sexual love. What they convey is culture in its entirety with the primitive and even barbaric vitality of sexual love transformed to give an outward appearance of refinement and sophistication.