Yang Wen: The Dafen Village Artist Who Paints the Forgotten Corners of Urban Life

Born in 1979 in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, Yang Wen now lives and works in Dafen, Shenzhen. A graduate of the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in Comprehensive Painting, he is currently a member of the Guangdong Artists Association, the Shenzhen Artists Association, and serves as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Dafen Artists Association.

Yang Wen’s artistic focus lies in the overlooked and forgotten spaces left behind by rapid urbanization and industrialization—abandoned factories, derelict buildings, neglected corners of the city. He does not romanticize the so-called “glory days” of the past. Instead, through his somber palette and meticulous attention to detail, he excavates the silent memories discarded by both history and modernity.

His works are a meditation on quiet reality: a wall, a pile of rubble, a shadow draped over a heap of debris. In Yang Wen’s hands, these seemingly mundane and discarded objects transcend their status as visual clutter and become poignant witnesses to the human experience.

Yang does not paint traditional landscapes—he paints the side profile of an era. He does not speak loudly, but his canvases whisper, gently revealing the hidden side of the city we thought we knew.