Lisson Gallery is pleased to present Shaanbei, a new body of work by Liu Xiaodong, one of the artist’s most ambitious and personally significant projects to date. Featuring large-scale paintings, works on paper, diary entries and a documentary, the exhibition expands Liu’s stature as one of China’s foremost artists.Based in Beijing, Liu Xiaodong frequently travels the world to capture the subjects of his extraordinary paintings of modern life. As a student at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s, Liu would take regular trips to various locations within the expansive Shaanbei region of China, home to many of his professors, keeping diaries and sketches of the mountainous area surrounding the city of Yan’an and the rural lands far outside the city. The final stop on The Long March – Mao Zedong’s retreat and rise to power – and the effective birthplace of the People’s Republic of China, the Shaanbei province remains a site of considerable historical and political significance. Liu’s return to the region 30 years later in 2018 signaled a revisitation to the foundations of his paintings practice, and allowed him to examine a changing civic landscape. Shaanbei explores the region from both a geopolitical and art historical point of view, while marking the artist’s continuation of his vocation as a painter of modern life.