New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry

balloons are the salient case in terms of Yan Li’s painting. In a clever

conceit, the balloons buoyancy contradicts their weight in a gesture

mutually reinforcing and negating.

In this context, Yan’s balloons in the “Longing for Nature” series

are of particular interest. As an urban artist, one might expect that

Yan’s deliberate address (because so titled) to the subject of nature

would pose an opportunity for stylistic departure. The images clearly

suggest otherwise. In the series, the human subjects are indeed freed

from the confines of their urban setting, floating in a fully natural

environment. A form of alienation is maintained, however, in Yan’s

still consistent stylistic treatment of the material subject of his paint-

ings. The woods, for instance, are not unlike the highrise buildings of

a multitude of urban images:

Yan Li in the Global City 151

The consistency of Yan’s visual statements suggest that something

else is at work rather than the mere “urban/nature” dichotomy. “Mother

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