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Liang Haopeng’s works are mostly paintings of unruly beheavior, chaotic gatherings often depicting verbal and physical arguments. He deliberately paints the figures in his canvases with oblique lighting and rimmed in red, so they appear violent and sinister. By capturing his subjects in peak action ”what the renowned photographer Henri Cartier- Bresson called the decisive moment” Haopeng creates a powerful sense of tension between the painting and its viewers.

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The paintings of Li Jia, whose work has been exhibited in the United Kingdom and the United States as well as in Shanghai and Beijing, are highly regarded in Chinese art circles: the “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document” gives her a full three pages and includes four half-page color illustrations. Two of the paintings shown in this prestigious book were featured in “Under the Radar,” the groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary Chinese works held at this galley from March through May 2008. In this series her anime-inspired subjects are young women with doll-like heads and provocative red dresses, dangling by slender threads as a marionette or tearfully swinging from them while seated on a thorny rose. Politically inclined viewers see the wilted red rose with its falling petals as a subconscious statement about a less-than-inspiring form of socialist government; romantics view them as a lament for a failed love.

Li Jia herself says her paintings are all about the commercial manipulation of women: “In childhood I was taught that I should have my own ideas, my own sense of identity, and a desire for knowledge.  As an adult I find that it is difficult to find these things in our society, so although we each seek to have our own identity, I feel all of these ideals are still under the control of our society, and that our vision of beauty is manipulated by the marketplace.”

See more of Li Jia’s artwork here

The enigmatic brides-to-be in paintings by Cui Jin seemed wrapped in crinkled cellophane, like gifts that have been opened, crumpled, and re-packaged. Two full-page color illustrations of her work are included in the definitive catalog, “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document.” Their elbow- length lace gloves as well as the fringed shawl covering their heads traditionally are red, symbolizing joy, long life and celebration in Chinese weddings. In some ceremonies, the bride wears the shawl over her head until she is formally presented to the groom’s family. Perhaps the response to Cui Jin’s mysterious images, like that of music, poetry and abstract art, lives within the perspective of the viewer.

See more of Cui Jin’s artwork here

Born in Handan, Hebei Province in 1974, Wang Limin has participated in 15 group exhibitions in China, Japan and Korea as well as a solo show at the Pickled Art Centre in Beijing. Two of his large-scale portraits of attractive young women dressed in military-style uniforms of the Mao Zedong era from the “Under the Radar” exhibition are given full-page color illustrations in the definitive catalog, “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document.” The red crysanthemum on the chests of two of the portraits symbolize celebration, luck and a life of ease–all the antithesis of being conscripted into a military organization. Orchids raining down on one subject symbolize perfection, abundance and higher growth, hardly attributes of a soldier’s life. Clearly, Limin’s perception of the Cultural Revolution is less than Utopian.

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According to Liu Qi Ming, “Art is rooted in life, but from the very beginning of the history of civilization, what influences our life most is politics, from which we can never escape! The politics of our society keep us dangling above a mysterious future, leaving us all at the mercy of the hands that hold our strings.” True to his philosophy, paintings by Qiming depict one or more individuals dangling by a slender red cord above an indistinguishable, inky morass.

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Zhu Yan, represented by two 57-inch-square oils, paints in the style of China’s “new cartoon movement” that began in the 1980s as a spinoff from the internationally popular animated Japanese comics. His paintings of groups of identical, emotionless male performers on a stage appear devoid of ulterior content until viewers read their exquisitely sarcastic titles: “I Love Tianamen Square,” for example, shows a male chorus on stage, its curtains framing the Palace Museum (formerly known as “the forbidden city,” or imperial palace) supporting a portrait of Mao Zedong. Two fighter planes zoom above the building, leaving contrails behind them. An identical member of the chorus stands rigidly beside them, tightly clutching a bouquet to his chest, clearly without intending to surrender it. Three pages in the definitive “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document,” a juried catalog of leading artists, are devoted to Zhu Yan, with two full-page color illustrations of his paintings.

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Born and educated in Sichuan, Liao Zhenwu often paints the ubiquitous motorcycles of his mountainous homeland. With a backdrop of winter’s gray skies, his gritty black-and-white paintings capture the smoky atmosphere of hordes of motorcyclists with their innumerable passengers. According to critic Gao Ling, Liao’s recent series of paintings reflect his impressions of the interactive relations among groups of mannikins in Beijing shop windows. “Based on the living environments he is familiar with,” Ling states, “Liao first told us stories about the town he lived in and then describes the shop windows of the metropolis,” in effect, providing us “time tags”–the artist’s generic title for his paintings–for those periods. In the prestigious “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document,” a juried catalog of the most important artists now working in China, Zhenwu commands three full pages featuring three large illustrations of paintings in his “Times Tag” series.

See more of Liao Zhenwu’s artwork here

Considered a quintessential Chinese artist, He Zubin is among the leading artists cataloged in the prestigious “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document.” His stylized figures, gracefully curved like the subjects of Thomas Hart Benton, suggest the relationship between the characters portrayed. In “Bad Guess,” an older girl, possibly a sibling, holds her hands as if playing a game like “paper, scissors, rock” with a younger boy; in “Doze,” a young couple nod off, their heads cradled in their arms, which intimately brush against one another. Both paintings are rendered in tranquil hues of gray, ivory and olive. The muted colors and gently curved lines present perfectly serene paintings, each a calming visual oasis.

See more of He Zubin’s artwork here