As one of China’s most well-known female artists, Yu Hong uses her personal experiences as the basis for her artworks. Her inspirations are remarkably diverse, from the emotional turmoil of her friends and those around her to the individual effects of the last 20 years of societal change in China.

Yu has studied art since she was a young child, and in her decades-long career, each phase of her painting truthfully and accurately captures the inner world of her subjects while reflecting the relationship between social realities and individual circumstances.

To commemorate the launch of two Yu Hong catalogues, Wondering Clouds and On the Clouds, UCCA invites Yu Hong and Executive Publisher of LEAP magazine and The Art Newspaper (China) Cao Dan to discuss Yu’s life, her art, and the development of contemporary art within a rapidly changing China.

Yu Hong

Born in 1966, Yu Hong studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s and has remained there as a professor since graduation. Since her early realist training, Yu has developed her own visual language with respect to portraiture and the human body. Through her art, Yu creates a world that welds together her perceptions and memories, grasping at the spirit of individual experience within a multifarious reality.

Cao Dan

Cao Dan was born in Guangzhou in 1972. She studied at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Since 1997, she has worked as a painter, filmmaker, and designer in both China and France. She is the executive publisher of LEAP magazine and The Art Newspaper (China).