The work is a collaboration of the artist and his wife, Zhang Tiemei. The husband and wife team works in synergy, incorporating the shan-shui landscape tradition by making use of the surface of the human body in place of conventional rice paper. Huang Yan also utilizes digital techniques to reproduce his images, blurring the line between the conventional and the avant-garde even further.

By redefining his own body as a canvas and combining imagery of traditional Chinese ink painting with a contemporary setting, Huang Yan creates a new conceptual context. As artists and subjects of their own investigation, Huang Yan and Zhang Tiemei reflect the omnipresent cultural angst of their generation in contemporary China. “The fact is, beyond the characteristic of being ‘painted in the colors of traditional culture,’ Huang Yan’s work projects a profound anxiety that constitutes one of the most central components of his narrative discourse” (Zhang Zhaohui).