After graduating from the Changchun Teachers Academy in 1987, Huang Yan began his “Chinese Landscape” series in 1999. In this series, Huang Yan paints traditional Song Dynasty landscapes over human bodies, photographing the completed result. The process allows him to merge the media of painting with performance and photography. Through merging the conventional subject of landscape with an unconventional media, Huang Yan breaks the boundary between classical and contemporary.

Huang Yan’s work highlights the relationship between human and nature. In his work, images of ‘nature’ obscure the human body, as if the body is being embraced by the natural world. Conversely, the way they human figure is shown in a different position in each image is representative of how society can unconsciously influence the natural world, reflecting Huang’s deep contemplation of contemporary society.