Shi Chong  (Chinese, 1963) 

Shi Chong (Chinese, b.1963) is one of the most important figures in Chinese Photo-Realistic movement. He was born in Huangshi, province of Hubei and graduated in 1987 from the Oil Painting department of Hubei Academy of Fine Arts. Shi started out among the “new generation” painters of the 1980s, producing works such as Blind Girl, Realist in terms of technique, and echoes the Scar Art movement in terms of subject matter. However, with Realism continually challenged by avant-garde movement of the 1990s, Shi was part of the development of a new 20th century Chinese Art movement, later called Neo-Figurative. Shi’s 1991 work, Dried Fish, depicting an installation of a plaster fish in a Photo-Realistic style, marked the beginning of the artist’s much-acclaimed 1990s period, producing important works that brought installation and performance to the canvas for the first time. The concepts and technique of these works won respect of the critics and his peer artists. At the turn of the century, Shi began a new series named Story, exploring the relationship between human body and the two most basic elements of life—water and air. Different from the traditional nude paintings, Shi places his subjects behind a screen of water and air, thus returning color and shape to the unperceivable, while resolving the subject matter into vagueness. In this way, the artist confronts his audiences with the everlasting question of life and existence. Shi lives and works in Wuhan.