The artist says that it took him over one month to paint this work, due to the incredible level of detail in " Utopia No. 11". This work is unframed and in perfect condition. A painting from this series "Utopia No. 1" just set a new record for highest price paid at auction for any work by Shi Lifeng on artnet Auctions on April 30, 2012 fetching $63,250US Premium.

"Utopia No. 11" (2011) is a stunning work by famous Chinese Contemporary artist, Shi Lifeng that belongs to his important new "Utopia" series of magnificent large-scale realist oil paintings that mark a major new direction in his work in the past year. Shi Lifeng' newest "Utopia" and "Happiness" Series of paintings and sculptures shed the intense black and red color palette and the serious Mao-era cultural references which defined Shi's oeuvre for the past decade. Now, his works depict flora and fauna, flowers, trees in bloom, rolling rivers, rays of light, and other themes related to the relative peace and prosperity of new China, and underscore the blossoming potential for the individuals of China as well as the country as a whole. Here Shi's iconic miniature red winged figures, their color a symbol of Communist China, hover together in celebration amongst a dense garden of branches with leaves and flowers as buds, as it life it just about to emerge all around them in this secret garden.

Shi Lifeng is one of the most famous artists of his 1960's generation of 'Chinese Avant Garde' artists and has exhibited at top international museums and galleries such as the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Yang Gallery (Singapore), and Beijing Contemporary Art Museum (Beijing, China), among others. Shi Lifeng graduated in 1991 from the Hebei Normal University, Hebei Province, China with a Degree in Painting. The artist lives and works in Beijing, China.