Despite his youth, 32-year-old Yang Chi-hung is one of the most outstanding artists on the contemporary Chinese scene, as a result of 10 years' intense concentration on the field. He explains that he had no particular teacher, but instead developed his own style through long reading, study and practice. He also considers he was born to be an artist, since he showed a creative imagination from an early age. His mother remembers how, as a boy, Yang would often sit by himself drawing pictures on the ground with colored stones and pieces of charcoal, while other children played noisily around him. The turning point in his career occurred in high school when he read the biography of Van Gogh and was deeply moved by the romantic but tortured live of the great Dutch artist. He vowed from that moment he would devote his life to painting. After graduating from high school, Yang entered the National Taiwan Academy of Arts to undergo basic training. His early works were based on his experiences on Matsu, an island outpost off the China mainland, where he was stationed during his military service. He depicted the lives of the fishermen with sympathy and humanity. Yang claims his fundamental philosophy is based on pessimism. Although he is still young, he says he seems to have seen through the secret of earthly life, and all is nothingness and void. But this does not stop him from working hard, and absorbing a wide range of influences and styles. In his recent works, Yang has made use of many materials and techniques to produce an impressive visual effect. For his tools, he uses pencils, pens, felt tip markers, acrylics, water and oil paints, in combination with his skills in copying and editing to create what he calls "multi-media" paintings. The form of his works often surprises audiences, but Yang is consistent in his theme of asking about the meaning and substance of life, and trying to provide answers. Yang is particularly concerned with the present status of Chinese culture, and how it is influenced by Western culture. He notes that modern man is living in an age of mass production, with daily commodities, and even lifestyles and social behavior standardized. To reflect this state of affairs, he likes to include themes from daily life, the movies, television and newspapers, in his work. By giving them a new visual meaning, he represents the reality of the present, and foreshadows the future of humanity. He considers that an artist is usually 10 years ahead of his generation. In addition to painting, Yang is also a distinguished photographer, an expert designer and a teacher of graphics in the National Taiwan Academy of Arts. But he claims these diffuse activities do not conflict, but rather complement each other, since there is a common essence in the different fields of artistic creation. Firmly believing that modern art can be developed only in a free and open society, Yang said he will never accept Communism, because under such totalitarian rule, free artistic creation is stifled, and stereotyped art becomes the only accepted form.