Photography Friday: Luo Yang

Luo Yang’s (罗)洋) “Girls” belong to a part of contemporary China that is rarely taken note of in the West. Her portraits depict an emerging Chinese youth culture that defies imposed expectations and stereotypes: “Girls” are badass and self-aware with a supreme sense of cool, yet also insecure, vulnerable and torn. Underlying tensions and ambivalent emotions lend friction to Luo’s images and deny a conclusive reading. Above all, her work is a testament to her subject’s individuality. It explores themes of youth and femininity while challenging traditional beliefs about Chinese women. “Girls” thus also reflect a shifting mindset with regard to concepts of femininity and identity in modern China.

Luo Yang (1984) was born and raised in Liaoning Province in China’s northeast, graduating from the prestigious Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang in 2009. A graphic designer by education, she instead decided to pursue her interest and talent in photography. Today she lives and works in Beijing and Shanghai as a freelance photographer. In 2012, Ai Weiwei pronounced her one of the “rising starts of Chinese photography.” Soon after, she participated in his show FUCK OFF 2 (2013) at the Groninger Museum, The Netherlands, where Ai — in a sequel to his radical FUCK OFF exhibition in Shanghai (2000) — brought together a handpicked range of up-and-coming Chinese artists. Solo shows in Berlin and Hong Kong have since contributed to her international recognition.

Check out more of this artist’s works on her personal website: http://www.luoyangphoto.com/

Photography Friday is a regular feature from Shanghaiist in association with Photography of China, Marine Cabos’s fantastic platform about photography and photographers in China.

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