Feng Zhengjie

Feng Zhengjie achieved international recognition for his Portraits of China series, Warholian pop paeans that satirize the faces of Chinese supermodels in candy colors. These billboard-size works comment on the increasing vacancy of Chinese culture and consumerism through the dulled eyes of glossy models ripped from real advertisements. Feng’s palette of hot pinks, glossy greens, and apple reds at once gives his models a devilish and dramatic flair and has also earned him a place amongst China’s premier Pop artists.

While Feng’s colorful, cartoonish style takes major cues from Pop art, the artist cites the Sichuanese style of “Mian Zhu Nian Hua” as a major influence on his work. Chinese history has long served as a touchstone in his work—posters from glitzy, international 1930s Shanghai, for instance, inspired his early paintings. Today, his portraits have expanded and depict other contemporary pop culture archetypes: brides and grooms in traditional wedding photos, businessmen and women, or even a clownish-looking Mao. Regardless of these changes in subject matter, however, Yang’s output remains consistently biting yet opaque.

Feng’s work has been exhibited at the Singapore Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.