Meng Yang Yang, b. 1980 LITTLE GIRL NO. 2 signed and dated 2006; signed, titled, dated 2006 and i

Meng Yang Yang, b. 1980 LITTLE GIRL NO. 2 signed and dated 2006; signed, titled, dated 2006 and inscribed with Chinese characters on the reverse oil on canvas 100 by 100cm.; 39.375 by 39.375in. Born in 1980, Meng is one of the youngest Chinese painters to achieve international recognition. Growing up in a China increasingly less marked by Maoist authoritarianism, her artistic inspiration is instead derived from the dizzyingly fast-paced changes in her country with its influx of Western entertainment and consumer goods. In the present work and lot 545 Meng has succumbed to her own reveries, drawing from her inner world a set of intensely animated characters that are nevertheless marred with a haunting feel. Like an aspiring Marlene Dumas, Meng builds solid form out of loose brushstrokes. In lot 545 a figure is placed slightly off centre, awkwardly filling the height of the picture and staring transfixed at an uncertain distant point. Doll-like and clad in a fluffy dress, her arms seem disjointed and her head is disproportionately large. Her expression seems unfit for the paintings subdued candy colours and her girlish clothes; as if possessed her right eye expands with a greenish glow. While the large head suggests childhood, a certain friction exists through the elongated limbs that imply puberty or adulthood. At the point where Mengs sugar-sweet dream might turn into a nightmare, the figure is intercepted where childhood mercilessly must give way to adulthood. Provenance Private Collection, Europe