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Artist Yan Peiming says the group of self-portraits, On My Knees, depicts his mixed feelings about holding a show in his motherland, China. Photos Provided to China Daily
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In another room is a portrait of the artist's mother and on the adjacent wall a self-portrait of Yan kneeling, which seems as if he is prostrating himself before her.
Yan says it sounded cool to name the exhibition Dead and Alive. But it is more than that - it is more about his attitude toward life. "Death is definite since one is born, but life is indefinite. Life is of greater importance than death."
Yan was born in Shanghai in 1960, and says that during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) those who could draw well would be chosen to draw propaganda pictures for the school.
"I was known as the best art student, and I drew people like Mao Zedong and Red Guards."
Yan says that when he was 13, he was already "sincerely, seriously" considering being an artist. At 18, he tried to get into the Shanghai Art and Design Academy but was rejected because of his stutter. He says speaking was not his strength, and it was only through art, he found a language with which he could express himself properly.
"I was disappointed," Yan says of the rejection.
In 1982, he decided to go to stay with an uncle in Paris. The following year he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, working in a Chinese restaurant to support himself.
"In China, teachers judged paintings and taught us how to draw, but they care little about the students' ideas behind the paintings. In the (Dijon) school, the teachers guided us to think about why we wanted to make a painting and what we were trying to express. It was a period when I found and built up my own identity."
After he graduated, he settled in the city and rented a studio with some of his classmates. In 1987, he began to do enormous portraits executed in either black and white or white and red, which developed into his signature style. One of his subjects was Mao Zedong, whom he painted often before leaving China.
"At the time, no one in France knew Yan Peiming but everyone knew Mao Zedong, so painting Mao was a sort of strategy to promote myself as a painter."
The strategy worked well and people began to notice him. In 1991, he held his first solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and finally put an end to 10 years of painting during the day and washing dishes at night.
"Over those 10 years, I questioned myself every day - my work as well," Yan says. "But the only thing I was fit for was to be an artist, and I knew I could not forget about it."
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