Acclaimed as the first artist bringing western collage into contemporary Chinese art scene, Xue Song graduated from Stage Art Department at Shanghai Drama Institute, where he initially inspired by western Pop Art and the works of Robert Rauschenberg in the 1980s. He then started experiments in combining contemporary and traditional elements, and processing folk art and ink paintings with modern techniques. After a fire incident of his studio in 1990, he was inspired to incorporate charred remnants in this work, while "burning" and "collaging" had become his distinctive artistic language.
