Ying Space, Beijing. 

Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Liu Dan, Shao Fan, Xu Lei: Early Morning at the Polar Region, Ying Space (Beijing), 2021.

The practice of Beijing-based artist Shao Fan (also known as Yu Han) is informed by a deep engagement with traditional Chinese culture, whilst also referencing elements of Western art history. Mixing past with present, his ethereal paintings, sculptures and installations explore the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. 

Shao Fan’s meticulous monochromatic ink-on-rice-paper paintings arise through an intense period of concentration and the slowing down of time. Drawing on the tenets of Taoist philosophy, in which humans and animals coexist in balance with the universe, his subjects range from depictions of hares, monkeys and whales to fruit and vegetables, all of which allude to historical Chinese customs and beliefs.

Using principles and techniques from the Song dynasty (960–1279), as well as processes associated with Liangzhu (Neolithic era), Fan’s work also acknowledges centuries of Western art history, from Albrecht Dürer to Georgia O’Keeffe.

For more than a decade, rabbits have occupied the center of Shao Fan's artistic universe. First appearing in his work around 2009, they return again and again: enlarged to near-human scale, facing the viewer with a quiet, uncanny presence. In his early paintings, the animals emerge through layers of oil and acrylic. More recently, in works like In the Name of the Rabbit—Back to the Light (2019), they materialize from thousands of delicate ink marks on xuan, or rice paper, their forms hovering between appearance and dissolution.

The motif developed from a simple, everyday familiarity. “At first, it was almost accidental,” he told FAD Magazine. “I had rabbits at the time, saw them every day, and eventually I just started painting them.” Yet the subject quickly revealed itself as uniquely suited to the kind of encounter he wanted to create. “Rabbits are ordinary, fragile animals, but I wanted to paint them almost like emperors, or lions—facing you directly, eye to eye. Once that happens, the relationship changes.”

That shift in perspective lies at the heart of the work. By enlarging the rabbit and positioning it directly before the viewer, Shao unsettles the familiar hierarchy between human and animal. As the artist explained, “Normally, humans look down on animals, especially something as weak as a rabbit. But when you enlarge it to almost a human scale, something shifts. You look at the rabbit, but the rabbit also looks back at you. Or maybe, through the rabbit, you start looking back at yourself.”

The sensation is amplified by Shao's painstaking technique. Working on traditional xuan paper, he builds each image through thousands of individual brushstrokes and translucent washes of ink. Fur accumulates strand by strand. Dense passages of marks dissolve into open areas of paper. The rabbit seems to emerge slowly from the surface, suspended between material presence and apparition.

The approach reflects Shao's deep engagement with the traditions of Chinese ink painting. “In the case of ink painting, the picture is written with the brush,” he notes. “We in China don't paint a picture; we write it.” The distinction is fundamental. Each brushstroke records a gesture, a movement, and a moment of attention. Through thousands of repeated marks, the image accumulates gradually, making the passage of time visible within the work itself.

Over time, Shao pushed this idea even further by removing one of the most expressive elements of portraiture: the eyes. “I realized that whenever there are eyes, your attention immediately goes there," he explains. “And once the eyes disappear, something else starts to happen. The gaze is no longer concentrated in one place. Instead, it feels like the whole body is looking at you." In these later works, presence is carried not by a single feature but by the accumulation of countless marks. "Even every strand of fur seems to be part of that gaze.”

That sense of duration lies at the center of Shao’s practice. Rather than pursue novelty, Shao returns repeatedly to the same subjects and techniques, allowing meaning to emerge through repetition. His rabbits become more than animals, more than portraits, even more than symbols. “These figures are animals, but at the same time, they’re also the artists themselves, and also the viewers.” Through that continuous exchange of gazes, the boundaries between subject, artist, and observer begin to blur, leaving us face to face not only with the rabbit but also with the artist and with ourselves.