In the early 1980s, Chinese painter Wang Yani stunned the art world with her fresh take on xieyi-styled paintings of baboons, monkeys, cats and other animals.
Wang originally got into painting through a desire to help her father, an art teacher and professional painter himself. Her father gladly let her and it was through the relationship that evolved between them, that Wang soon began painting independently. Her father had to make personal sacrifices for her to flourish: he suspended his own practice so that his style would not limit Wang’s artistic development or the evolution of her own style. He only picked up the paintbrush again when Wang had fully grown up.
