They have chosen France: Yan Pei-Ming
Yan Pei-Ming, Chinese inspiration and French brushes
Yan Pei Ming’s paintings are a bridge between East and West. This is only natural since this painter, born in China in 1960 and proud to assert his origins, arrived in France at the age of nineteen. After failing the course at the Shanghai Fine Arts Academy, he joined his uncle, who was living in Paris, to try again at the Paris Beaux-Arts. Having failed once more, he left to work in Dijon, in a Chinese restaurant owned by a friend. Here life smiled upon him, for he successfully completed his studies at the Dijon Beaux-Arts. He then decided to set up his studio in a factory on the outskirts of Dijon, a few kilometres from the city centre where he lives with his family.
Here in the heart of Burgundy he paints his monumental portraits (2 to 3 metres high) of the likes of Mao, Buddha and Bruce Lee. He works in oils, using large brushstrokes of black, white and shades of grey, making paintings that are almost abstract when viewed close up, but become figurative from a distance. The latest coup from this Burgundian Chinese is an immense portrait of French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, exhibited last spring at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Olivia Marsaud
journalist
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