Treating the initial untouched photographic image as a blank canvas, Chen Man employs digital tools in a painterly fashion to build a narrative concept. This process of layering strokes, textures and imagery provides the artist full creative freedom to construct a fantastical world entirely her own. Drawing from an immense and prolific visual vocabulary, Chen Man imposes traditional Chinese iconography onto modern subjects, creating compositions that are both contradictory and harmonious, in a celebration of the past and the present. 

In her Five Elements series (pictured above), the artist juxtaposes models transformed into divine interpretations of fire, water, metal and wood, alongside real-life Chinese women who work as fishmongers or metalsmiths. "I mix tradition with modernity and make it kitsch,“ explains Chen Man. "In the past, Chinese artists have always looked abroad for inspiration as opposed to looking domestically. I’m one of the first people to actually look to China for inspiration.”

Chen Man “East-West,” an exhibition of photographs and paintings, is coming to L.A. Louver this winter (10 December 2014 - 24 January 2015). Click here to see more images of her work. 

IMAGE: Chen Man, Five Elements: Water, 2011, c-print (diptych), panel 1: 64 3/8 x 55 in. (163.49 x 140 cm), panel 2: 33 ¼ x 31 ½ in. (84.5 x 80 cm)