Pan Hsin-hua 潘信華

Born in Taitung, Taiwan, in 1966, Pan Hsin-hua creates surrealistic paintings that are in a classical brush-and-ink style firmly rooted in the Chinese painting tradition. He graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts, and his works have been exhibited extensively in Taiwan. Pan skillfully blends both the past and the present in paintings that examine the relevance of tradition in contemporary culture. His archaism echoes the "blue-and-green style" that uses opaque mineral pigments in a mode traditionally thought most appropriate for depicting an idealized and utopian world. At the same time, Pan introduces an ironic and irreverent flavor into his work by integrating unconventional pictorial elements, often from other cultures, and usually of an explicitly contemporary and playful nature.