
Yan Pei-Ming
Icons, 2013

Yan Pei-Ming’s epic size monochromatic paintings have redefined the traditional parameter of …

Fusing the Western tradition of portrait painting with China’s cultural history, Yan Pei-Ming creates large-scale works depicting real and imaginary people. Yan’s portraits, typically mono- or bi-chromatic, often verge on abstraction, with broad, patterned brushstrokes and drips of paint. He is perhaps best known for his monumental self-portraits, including Double (Selfportrait at the Morgue) (2006), a watercolor of the artist as a dead man, as well as his eight-foot-tall portraits of Mao Zedong, Bruce Lee, and his father.


Yan Pei-Ming’s epic size monochromatic paintings have redefined the traditional parameter of portraiture. Often depicting Mao Zedong, Bruce Lee, his father, and other cultural icons, these portraits are, in reality, brilliant encapsulations of historical traces and personal sentiments endeared to the artist
"I am …

Fusing the Western tradition of portrait painting with China’s cultural history, Yan Pei-Ming creates large-scale works depicting real and imaginary people. Yan’s portraits, typically mono- or bi-chromatic, often verge on abstraction, with broad, patterned brushstrokes and drips of paint. He is perhaps best known for his monumental self-portraits, including Double (Selfportrait at the Morgue) (2006), a watercolor of the artist as a dead man, as well as his eight-foot-tall portraits of Mao Zedong, Bruce Lee, and his father.