Zhang Haiying, China

Zhang Haiying’s Anti-Vice Raid Campaign series takes as its subject the Chinese government’s recent initiatives in eradicating prostitution. Executed in faux social realist style Zhang’s paintings use the devices of propaganda for non-politicised means: his works neither advocate nor criticise illicit activity, but draw from the associated issues of power, exclusion, vulnerability, and perception to create images of emotive discord.

Finding his source material on the internet, Zhang translates photographic images with subtle painterly manipulations to enhance mass media aesthetics and its conflicting messaging. His tones – dramatic reds over cold greys – allude to both authoritative iconography and strip club sleaze, while his stylised figures are made to look strangely hyper-real, like computer generated avatars, or celebrities overexposed in paparazzi swarms; women objectified by their equally desirable and degrading portrayal.

The famed Contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Haiying graduated in 1997 from the Fine Arts Department of Shang Dong Academy of Fine Arts. The artist has exhibited at numerous locations internationally including The Saatchi Gallery The Revolution Continues–New Chinese Art, (London, UK), and Willem Kerseboom Gallery (Amsterdam, NL), amongst numerous others.