Style
Shang Yang was trained Soviet Realism but after the Cultural Revolution he was one of the first artists to reject his training. He started creating mixed media works in the early 1980s.
Shang Yang's work tends to use images from traditional Chinese landscape paintings. The images are then screened onto a canvas by a machine. He then distorts the image with graffiti or obtrusive geometrical designs. Shang Yang has demonstrated an infatuation with the yellow earth plateau remote from southern culture. In the years 1984-1985, Shang Yang created a series of oil paintings on Korean paper about the conditions and customs of northern Shaanxi, clearly signaling his change in artistic style. In his painting 'Yellow River boatmen' you can see the beginnings of his fascination with the loess plateau, and this wells forth in an uninhibited way in his later works in the fundamental timbre of yellow. In 'Mother of the Loess Plateau' the artist loves the barren mountainous area of the Yellow River Basin and its people. In this work, the image of the mother, the stone wall behind her, and the loess hills in the background link together, hinting at the inseparable bond created by life in a warm and intrepid environment.
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