Huang Yan (born 1966 in Jilin province, China) is a multimedia artist, Taoist, and businessman based in Beijing. He graduated from the Changchun Normal Academy in 1987, and is currently a lecturer at Changchun University. In 1999, Huang Yan began a series of paintings/photographs of traditional Chinese landscape paintings using the human body as a canvas, called Chinese Landscapes. Both Feng Boyi and Ai Weiwei noticed his artwork, including it in their controversial Fuck Off exhibition in 2000 in Shanghai. His art can relate to Chinese people and their culture, even though it is still considered contemporary art. The landscape paintings he uses come from the Song Dynasty, which is what most consider the most "Chinese-looking". On the other hand, the human body was seldom used in ancient Chinese art, which is what makes this art very contemporary. Career Huang started his career as a poet and was recognized as an artist who used creative mediums such as the human body, ox bones, busts of Mao Zedong, flowers, musical instruments and old communist uniforms. He gradually became more and more popular through his art. In 2008, Huang Yan was nominated for the Art Gallery of Ontario's first Grange Prize. This prize meant that he was offered an art residency anywhere in Canada. He attended the Banff Centre for ten days, and took the opportunity to meet many different artists. He chose the Banff Centre to experience the winter and Canada's Aboriginal culture. He explored the area with his wife and even painted the background scenery on his face. Besides being an artist and poet, Huang Yan has also published several books regarding the emergence of new, contemporary Chinese artists. He operates his own gallery, Must Be Contemporary Art, in Beijing's 798 Factory/Art Center. Artistic styles and media Since his art medium is the human body, some question whether or not the body is the art or the painting on the body. "As the body moves, the painted subject takes another shape or meaning." Huang Yan's creations can also be considered performance art, even though he himself has never performed. In Chinese culture, nudity and the human body are still considered taboo. Landscapes symbolize the intellectual values of the erudite class. Painting them on body parts not only makes it avant-garde, but it is a new way of using traditional Chinese art and of representing the relationship between man and nature,