Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Ying Yefu’s Macabre Paintings Utilize Traditional Chinese Techniques

Chinese artist Ying Yefu creates blatantly macabre paintings with a punchline. It's as if each piece involves some sort of visual joke, where one detail is altered in such a way that the forms we thought we recognized are not what they seem. A cranium peeled open to reveal red blood doubles as a watermelon parted down the middle. An infant's body is hybridized with a phallic, fleshy appendage that extends out of his head lopsidedly. Part of the visual pleasure of Ying's work is deducing the various incongruous elements at play in each piece. While Ying's art is reminiscent of the creepy-cute aesthetic popularized by Japanese painters of the generation before him (Ying was born in 1980), much of his work is executed using traditional Chinese painting techniques that tie his unmistakably contemporary style to his cultural heritage.

Chinese artist Ying Yefu creates blatantly macabre paintings with a punchline. It’s as if each piece involves some sort of visual joke, where one detail is altered in such a way that the forms we thought we recognized are not what they seem. A cranium peeled open to reveal red blood doubles as a watermelon parted down the middle. An infant’s body is hybridized with a phallic, fleshy appendage that extends out of his head lopsidedly. Part of the visual pleasure of Ying’s work is deducing the various incongruous elements at play in each piece. While Ying’s art is reminiscent of the creepy-cute aesthetic popularized by Japanese painters of the generation before him (Ying was born in 1980), much of his work is executed using traditional Chinese painting techniques that tie his unmistakably contemporary style to his cultural heritage.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Seattle-based artist Mary Iverson creates oil paintings that both celebrate nature and comment on our problematic choices surrounding it. Slashes and geometric shapes obscure parts of the pristine backdrops depicted by the artist, using an X-acto knife to cut through her initial creations. Here, sites like the California coast and Mount Rainier are overcome by shipping containers and similar, intrusive objects. Iverson was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Scott Musgrove’s 7.5-foot-tall, 12-foot-wide triptych “The Sanctuary” is finally complete. The artist spent nearly three years on the piece—made from oil on panel, wood, bronze, and glass—while simultaneously working on shows and other projects. (Musgrove was last featured on HiFructose.com here.) Below, the artist shares exclusive commentary on the creation of this piece with Hi-Fructose.
Chapel Hill artist Antoine Williams, a.k.a. Raw, explores issues surrounding race and class through mixed-media installations, paintings, drawings, and collage. His work is semi-autobiographical, inspired by his experiences of a rural working class upbringing in Red Springs, North Carolina. "My art practice is an investigation of my cultural identity through the exploration of societal signs as they relate to institutional inequities," Williams explains in his artist statement. View more of his work on his Instagram and Tumblr.
An exhibition currently running at National Portrait Gallery features Michael Jackson-inspired art, with Mark Ryden's cover for the 1991 record "Dangerous" prominently featured. But it’s not just the original painting: Ryden crafted an entirely new work, “The King of Pop,” to house the piece.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List