A colourful, cartoon-style painting of lively baseball fans in a stadium; people cheer, wear uniforms, wave hands, and hold a “Give me a ball or strike out” sign. White birds fly across a vivid red sky, and a scoreboard reads “Home of the Busters.”.

Yan Jingzhou Open Studio

Artist-in-residence Yan Jingzhou hosts an Open Studio presenting research and works-in-progress developed during his three-month residency at Studio Voltaire.

Yan’s paintings are populated by bright, grotesque characters that look like plasticine dolls from childhood animations. Most of these absurd, joyful scenes revolve around a quirky, big-nosed protagonist named Buster. Through Buster’s bizarre adventures, Yan uses dark humour and irony to look at the confusion of a generation and the daily grind of modern life. While the surface of the work often feels festive and playful, the paintings also address real feelings of isolation, political tensions and the fragile nature of human connection.

During his residency in London, the physical distance from China has led Yan to look inward and reflect on his cultural roots. For this Open Studio, he will share a new body of work that translates traditional Chinese imagery, folklore, and mythological figures, such as the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea (八仙过海). By bringing these ancient myths into his signature, theatrical world, Yan places traditional cultural archetypes alongside modern anxieties. This new research allows his practice to move between cultural memory and contemporary observation.

Visitors will have the opportunity to see how Yan uses the distance of the residency to reconstruct familiar histories, using his distinct visual language to bridge the gap between home and his current surroundings.

  1. Yan Jingzhou (b. 1995, Hebei Province, China) is an artist who lives and works in Beijing, China. Selected solo exhibitions include: Love Is Love, Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (2025); All Around Buster Town, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2024); Buster’s Love, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand (2023). Selected Group Exhibitions Layered Skin, Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (2023); First Encounter, Yue Art Museum, Beijing, China (2022); Jungle of All Forms, Haihui Art Museum, Zhengzhou, China (2022); The 9th Beijing International Art Biennale, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China (2022); The 5th Poetic Living Festival: Poetry and Songs for Life Art Exhibition, Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, Beijing, China (2020); Xunxun Exhibition Series V: The Garden of Forking Paths, Parkview Green Art Center, Beijing, China (2020).

    His works have been showcased at major international art fairs, including Art Basel Hong Kong 2025, ART021 Beijing 2025, ART021 Shanghai 2023, Art Taipei 2023 & 2024 and Art Busan 2023. Yan graduated from the School of Arts and Design, Hebei Normal University, China in 2018 and received his Master’s degree in Oil Painting from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 2022.

  2. If you have any questions or need assistance with your visit, please feel welcome to contact us at +44 (0) 20 7622 1294 or access@studiovoltaire.org. Read Studio Voltaire's full access information here.

  3. Jingzhou Yan, The King of Utopia, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist, Tang Contemporary Art and a private collector.