Ma Yanhong is a Chinese artist who just graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, in 2002. While she has studied with two of China's forerunning "Realist" painters --- Yu Hong and Liu Xiaodong-- she nevertheless departs from their social realism into the world of tongue-in-cheek social commentary. Ma Yanhong's sexy portraits of her female friends mock the modernisn messaging that confronts the idea of the 'good woman' in Chinese society, sending traditional roles and expectations amuck. At the same time, Yanhong is sympathetic with her subjects: the freedoms of the new era in China are full of conflict, and the young women negotiating them, Ma Yanhong implies, are equally empowered and undone. More of her work HERE and HERE.
