Wang Yin

This publication surveys the work of Chinese artist Wang Yin (born 1964) from 2003 to 2009, placing it within the historical context of twentieth-century Chinese painting, as well as broader shifts in modern Chinese culture. It also demonstrates the artist's active engagement with the Western artistic canon from Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat to Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth.

The contemporary Chinese painter, Wang Yin, makes evocative original artworks that borrow from early Chinese oil painting, as well as the Western cannon. He looks back upon, mimics and copies classic paintings, then inscribes his own marks, thereby stamping his own imprint on key representative, art historical, material or conceptual works. "My recent works, as always, are lacking in visual unity. They might seem original, but they exist, for the most part, outside of time--in particular without reference to the present. They give the impression of being worn out, coarse and messy, but they are neither assemblages of bric-a-brac, nor arbitrary haphazard compositions… What has always appealed to me in painting is simply the possibility of capturing a perception of painting when I am working, perception shaped by my life and my conception of painting."