Pan Jian (b. 1975, China.) is a thoughtful and committed painter. He is known for his paintings of the forest and for many years uses them to experiment with technique to invoke feeling through introspection. It becomes to him a spiritual journey or a fixated trance. In his exploration of shadow, the artist distils the relationship between light and dark to its purest form, resulting in an arresting body of work that challenges the viewer to wander through his varied forest scenes that have an innate spiritual quest. Pan Jian’s artistic process first draws inspiration from literature and poetry as well as actual landscapes, gradually transforming what he has seen into the imagined scenes that he presents on each canvas. He is constantly exploring and inventing different painting techniques to conjure deep feelings of harmony, melancholy, stillness, and movement. The landscapes are therefore both real and imagined, a dichotomy that is reflected in the concept that although a shadow has no tangible content, the image presented is still able to move the viewer, provoking an emotional response.

Pan Jian graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Xi’an Academy of Fine Art where he is currently a professor of painting. He recently had a major solo exhibition at the Himalaya Museum in Shanghai. His works are part of the Hong Kong M+ Museum, Uli Sigg collection, the Yuz Museum Collection, the Burger Collection, among others. He lives and works in Beijing and Xi’an.