Yang Shaobin is a leading painter in the movement called Cynical Realism. Born in 1963 in Tangshan, Hebei Province, he graduated from Hebei's Polytechnic University in 1983. In 1991, he moved to the Beijing artist village of Yuanmingyuan, and four years later, he chose a studio in Tongxian, a suburb of Beijing where many Chinese artists now live.

As a major, representative artist of his generation, Yang became known for his sprawling canvases depicting figures in violent states of wrestling and fighting. Apocalyptic in tone, Yang's paintings portray a struggling self, seemingly at war with its body, as if the figure were attempting to violently transcend itself. One is tempted to see the works as indicative of political complaint, but their overarching violence suggests a broader, even an allegorical, reading.

- Jonathan Goodman