Oil Painting on Canvas by Yang Qian

Title: Hiding in The Jungle
Artist: Yang Qian (Chinese; B. 1959)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Years: purchased circa 1990
A Palm Beach, FL collection
An early work by Yang Qian during his sojourn in Florida, USA. The series delved into art history with reinterpretation and overlaying symbolism. The painting is set in a moody tropical jungle at night and is a clear reinterpretation and a dialogue between Henri Rousseau's The Dream and Paul Gauguin's La Femme du Roi. Although the two French artists were contemporaries, they may have not intersected in their personal lives. Pioneering and ground-breaking for their time, their work were celebrated posthumously and served as inspiration for later artists.
For a similar painting Odalisque Now (c.1990) see lot 135 of Sotheby's Contemporary Art Asia sale on September 17th, 2008
Brief Biography: Yang Qian, born in 1959 in Chengdu, China, is a member of the first generation of Contemporary artists from Mainland China. Yang attended the Sichuan Fine Art Institute from 1982 to 1984, before obtaining an MFA at the University of Florida, in the United States in 1988. He has held multiple teaching positions, and his work has been exhibited internationally at such institutions as the National Museum of China, Beijing; the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; and the Czech National Art Museum, Prague.
Yang works primarily with photography and painting, and there are often many layers of meaning contained within each piece of his art. His subjects vary, but are often female, with concepts drawn from everyday life. Yang’s art shifts between illusion and reality, playing with his viewer’s sense of perception. His more recent work continuously pushes the limits of two-dimensional painting, utilizing new media in his work, and departing from traditional painting and its limitations. In Yang’s Bathroom series, the subjects are often shrouded behind steam, and viewers observe them through a mirror that Yang has painted. There is a sense of realism, but also a carefully crafted layer of illusion and mystery. Yang has been highly praised for his innovative painting techniques, and he continues to live and work in Beijing.