Since coming to prominence in the late 1990s, Yang Shaobin has been producing paintings, installations, and videos crowded with haunting human figures, expressive of his deep concern with the effects of political, social, and economic forces on an individual’s life. In his early, monochromatic works, Yang embodied the emotional turmoil caused by social upheaval, and the anxiety provoked by the mores of contemporary society, in images of distorted, anguished figures. Politics and current events imbue his later works, in which he intersperses portraits of various world leaders with images from the news and forceful abstract passages. Exploring his experience growing up in a family of coal miners for his most recent works, Yang depicts soot-covered miners who seem to meld with their surroundings, suggestive of the disturbing invisibility of these individuals who labor dangerously underground.