"Dreaming-Dunhuang" (2009) is a stunning color photograph that is a visually arresting super close-up self-portrait by famous Chinese conceptural artist Huang Yan. With eyes closed and cut rice-paper 'petals' applied over his eyes, the artist has his face painted white to make it a blank canvas, with a fantasy-scape of Chinese iconography painted in muted pinks, greens and blues swirls across his visage. He sacrificed his individual identity to the greater Chinese collective, while at the same time using his portrait as a willing yet passive human canvas.

The work is unframed and in pristine condition.

In 1999, Huang Yan began a series of color photographs entitled "Chinese Landscapes" – traditional images and landscapes painted directly on the skin of a human body. Yan’s artworks encapsulate a synthesis of Chinese traditional heritage and the contemporary world. The human body and skin itself becomes a piece of paper as Huang Yan paints, leading us to question whether the subject of his work is the body or the painting. Is it a painted body, or a landscape, or both?

Huang Yan (b. 1966, China) is a major figure in Chinese Contemporary art. His signature technique, the photography of the painting of the human body (frequently his own) with traditional Chinese landscapes and allegorical scenes, has made its mark on world photography over the past decade. His works are in the top Museum and Private Collections spanning from Asia, Europe, the U.K and US.