Huang Liyan (b. 1976, Guangdong) graduated in 2007 with a Master’s Degree in Oil Painting from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Guangzhou and Beijing.
Huang Liyan's paintings are rooted in reality and are concerned with the dilemmas of individuals in real situations. Through his paintings, he perceives and balances the relationship between himself and the world, establishing a unique expressionist style in his continuous reflection on the living conditions of human. He emphasizes the sensibility of creation, focusing on the often neglected moving moments in life. Through a spectator's perspective, he extracts, edits and reconstructs scenes and images that are often bizarre yet profound, giving his works a sense of magical realism balancing between documentation and fiction-creation. His art constructs mysterious and twisted contexts between the conflicts of time and space, people and animals, self and non-self.
Huang Liyan's major solo exhibitions include "Man, Creature, Wandering Immortal" (Tokyo Gallery + Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, 2019); "Disguise" (Kui Yuan Gallery, Guangzhou, 2018); "Light - Huang Liyan Solo Exhibition" (MoShang Experiment Space, 2017); " The White Moon" (MoShang Gallery, 2017); and "Huang Liyan: The Incubus Illuminates the Reality" (White Box Art Center, 2014), etc. His works have also been included in exhibitions held by the Guangdong Museum of Art, the Hubei Museum of Art, the ACC Creative Center, Gwangju in South Korea, the S.E Gallery in Bergen, Norway, and the Times Art Museum Beijing, etc.