SU YU is a Chinese artist born in 1987 who lives & works in Beijing in China. He was an old student of prestigious art teachers as Shi Liang & Chen Danqing at Oil Painting Institute in Beijing.

Su Yu’s paintings use realistic techniques to create space and form, but they depict irrationality in environments that appear rational. This juxtaposition contributes to the absurdity of the image. In his other paintings,The Iceberg Melts for instance (Figure4), it creates an absurd effect that appears real. In the picture’s foreground is a svelte woman sunbathing on the sand. In terms of character modeling, it fully demonstrates Su Yu’s realism. This woman symbolizes the pursuit of material pleasure by individuals. The tiger skin beneath her reflects the slaughter of animals by humans and the destruction of the natural environment by humans; melting icebergs, polar bears floating on ice, and dead penguins reflect the miserable existence of animals as a result of global warming and environmental destruction. The distant volcano signifies the impending arrival of disaster. This type of juxtaposed scene creates an extremely absurd visual effect. The picture breaks the rationality of daily life and causes the viewer to meditate, and this kind of irrationality exists everywhere in our lives. The absurdity of Su Yu’s works is distinct from that of Salvador Dali’s. In Dali’s works, the absurdity of dreams, which is incongruous with reality, is more pronounced. In contrast, Su Yu reveals the reality of life, not the absurdity of nothingness. Concurrently, this absurdity reflects the artist’s humanistic concern for and examination of the world, environment, and people. Contemporary art is not aesthetic in the conventional sense, nor is it evaluated based on whether the image is beautiful or instructive. The value of the work consists of the painter’s desire to stimulate the audience’s contemplation of social issues via the image.