“Liu Yan’s works combine the materials and techniques of traditional Chinese painting with Western representational modes and imagery,” according to Dr. Lydia Thompson of Thompson & Martinez Fine Art Appraisals, Inc.
In creating “a collage-like painting surface from China’s cultural detritus,” the artist’s “pastiche of imagery and icons from traditional China and contemporary international popular culture” contrasts representations of an emperor and empress with seminude women, punk rockers and characters from classical Chinese opera.
Liu Yan’s jarring juxtapositions of Chinese tradition with such elements of contemporary life and suggestions of ‘the unleashing of repressed sexual desire” offers a provocative comment on the tensions that lie beneath China’s integration into global culture, Dr. Thompson states.
See more of Liu Yan’s artwork here