Fang Lijun (b.1963) graduated from the Department of Printmaking, Central Academy of Fine Arts. Fang is one of the earliest Chinese avant-garde artists to garner international attention in the 1990s. Fang has held almost 40 solo exhibitions in major art museums worldwide, including at the Venice Biennale and Sǎo Paulo Biennial. His works are collected by the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts, San Francisco, among others. He currently lives and works in Beijing, China.

Fang’s practice exhibits a rarefied technical skill rigorously studied through his Social Realist training; his combination of this aesthetic with references to contemporary comics, folk art, and dynastic painting characterize a national identity in flux, distilling a position of integrity from tradition and the modern world.

Fang’s prints revive the ancient Asian practice of woodblock printing — a complicated and exacting process of carving an image into a panel, coating the surface in ink, and impressing the image onto paper; each different color and tone requires a separate plate and order of printing. Thematically, each of these prints describes the plight of the individual against the mass, creating a spiritual contemplation of solitude and the quest for personal probity in the face of adversity.

• 2017
• woodblock print on paper
• limited edition of 99
• 17.5 x 12.5 cm