Mao With Dragons, 2008

Huang Yan is a contemporary multimedia artist from Beijing, China. He currently lectures at Changchun University. He combines painting, photography and sculpture to create his artwork. Yan is most famous for using human beings as canvas, painting landscapes, patterns and flowers on people's faces and bodies. The photographs of the painted people becomes the artwork. Much of his landscape paintings are influenced by the Song dynasty and he also uses zen and Buddhist themes in his work. One of the most famous artists in China today, Mr. Huang who started out as a poet, has had exhibitions of his work all over the world. His biggest controversy came in 2014, when his porcelain busts of Mao weren't allowed to leave China for an exhibition in France. The busts were considered to be disrespectful to the deceased communist leader. Huang Yan is also a businessman and author. He operates his own art gallery, Must Be Contemporary Art, and writes mostly about fellow contemporary Chinese artists. His wife, Zhang Tiemei, is also an artist and they often work together.