In addition, Li Shan also painted a large number of animals and political icons. Yue Minjun, Yang Shaobin and Liu Wei works express the individual. This emphasis is not only aimed at China's history of collectivism, but also at re-affirming personal values, even if extreme, in a somewhat exaggerated sense of individualism. Yue Minjun repeatedly uses himself as the subject of his paintings. He employs a variety of techniques, which are self-effacing, yet still somehow narcissistic, to express the optimistic outlook of China's young and upwardly mobile generation.
Contemporary life re-establishes itself based on the principle of necessity.
In this sense, Yue Minjun's paintings clearly reflect the individual, as well as the practicality of China's new generation of artists. Yang Shaobin has gone even further down the road of individualism. He employs a kind of self-destructive technique to express his individuality. In Yang Shaobin's works, self portrait busts combine with expressive brushwork. This combination takes the desire for self salvation and almost resignedly places it in a precarious position in which the image of the self constantly seems on the verge of collapsing or going to pieces.