A young Beijing artist, Liu Bolin, who has exhibited primarily in China until last year’s solo show at Paris’ Galerie Bertin Toublanc and a group show with the gallery in Miami had recently finished up a show at Eli Klein fine art in New York showcasing a variety of his pieces including some from the series ‘Camoflague’. This series is an exploration of human nature and animal instincts which features Chinese citizens painted to blend into their surroundings, no matter how difficult they might be. The subjects are covered from head to toe in paint, camouflaging themselves in front of the Chinese flag, a billboard or downtown Beijing.

Liu Bolin with a little help from an assistant paints his body to merge as seamlessly as possible with what is behind him. He uses himself as a blank canvas. His work is to choose a good background where he wants to be “disappeared” into and it requires a lot of patience with him standing there unmoved until a design has been painted to him. He works on his photographs for more than ten hours to make sure he gets it just right. He achieves the right effect where sometimes passers-by don’t even realize he is there until he moves. Have a look at his fantastic masterpieces.