The theatrical canvases are flooded with detail, awash in saturated colours and floating symbols
from a confused amalgam of the past and the present. The people become floating forms in a sea
with no beginnings or endings.

Lu Peng is a prominent and acclaimed artist whose works have been shown widely across the
world in places including New York, London, Sydney, Boston and France for close to two
decades. He currently teaches at the Fine Arts Department of the Beijing College of Education.
Lu Peng’s canvases explore the ‘perpetual state of dreaming’, that people are in, both in their
dreams of the past and the visions of the future, according to the artist. This perhaps explains the
surreal quality of his works where memoirs clash with fantasies and cultural symbols come
unhinged, quite literally, from their contexts to become elements of play in the compositions.
The paintings are absurd playful depictions which are at once dense yet light.

The selection of his works at the Mulan gallery also embraces the suggestive exuberance of his
unique paintings including those from his famed Through the Wall series. There are also other
significant works by the artist such as a painting from the Leaving the Garden of Dreams series,
which has the typical dreamy quality with figures floating and the past overlapping with the
current. His flamboyant use of colour and whimsical portrayals easily stand out and draw the
gazer’s attention.