New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry

Yan is also toying with the notion of the artificiality of the observer

herself, for the vision that travels through the window frames (both

leading to interiors and to urban scapes beyond) is ultimately impli-

cated in the built structures themselves. The effect is an interpenetra-

tion of formerly disparate elements—the individual and her urban

environment collapsing into one. The 2002–2003 series of three paint-

ings entitled “Peaceful Evolution” is a case in point. In the following

example, a poignant and typical ambivalence is maintained in the

contrast between “peace” and “construction” (actually, “construction

industry” in Chinese). The ambivalence is manifest in Yan’s delicate

balance of warm interiors of lush color that invite the human subject,

and the mechanized significance of the bricks that repel it at the

same time.

150 Paul Manfredi

The three images of the “Peaceful Evolution” series manage to reach

at once toward the comforts of technology and the perils of its wide-

spread application. Taken in the larger framework of Yan’s work, we

find a recurrent negotiation of contending systems, human and tech-

nological, that gradually, imperceptibly blend into one. The brick

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