Yang Yongsheng is a young artist from Yunnan Art School. Since the 1980s this South-Western province of China, inhabited by colorful ethnic minority people, has developed into an exciting center for modern Chinese printmaking art.
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By April 2004, we have seen only four prints by Yang Yongsheng so far - two landscapes, one portrait and one genre scene. We like especially the landscapes. They have something of the quiet vigor of the famous Japanese landscape artist Hasui Kawase.
Like Hasui, Yang Yongsheng knows how to create moods with the effect of light and shadow. And where Hasui created this gorgeous atmoshere of space and a certain solitude by putting a tiny, anonymous human being with an umbrella into a landscape scene, Yang Yongsheng achieves a similar effect with a lonely horse.
Any review of an artist's oeuvre based on four art works is a bit premature. At the moment we have the feeling that Yang Yongsheng is another great find. We are therefore looking forward to receiving more prints by him - with a certain eagerness.
"When you see an artwork for the first time and you are excited, then it is interesting art. When you still feel the same after a few days, then it is good art. And when you are still excited after a few weeks, then it is great art."
Yang Yongsheng was born in 1967 in Yujing, Yunnan province, in China. He graduated from the Print Department of Yunnan Fine Art Academy.
Presently Yang Yongsheng works as director of Qujing Art Institute. This institute together with Yunnan Fine Art Academy is today the center of the artistic activities of the Yunnan Art School.
Printworks by Yang Yongsheng are in several Chinese and Japanese museums.
The artist works in traditional woodblock technique. He prints with oil-based inks.
The prints we have seen in the first place were from the late 1990s. They were printed as limited editions of 20 copies. All prints were signed, dated and numbered by the artist in pencil.
These early woodblock prints from the 1990s are now rare and sold out by the artist.
Dieter Wanczura
(July 2004, updated August 2009)
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