Luo Weidong, Luo Weiguo & Luo Weibing

In a deliberate artistic focus upon East meets West, the Luo Brothers’ “Welcome to the World’s Famous Brands” is an ongoing series responding to the arrival and proliferation of Western goods in Mainland China since the mid-1990s. Using visually powerful imagery and a secret method of production derived from traditional methods, the Luo Brothers’ oeuvre reflects a variety of stylistic influences ranging from traditional Chinese folk art and landscape painting to Western advertising and American Pop art.

Born in Guanxi Province, working as a team since 1986, and based in Beijing since 1994, the brothers Luo -- Weidong (b. 1963), Weiguo (b. 1964) and Weibing (b. 1972) -- are leading exponents of China’s Gaudy Art movement.  Gaudy art evolved from Political Pop Art (a movement of the early 1990s whose best-known practitioner is Wang Guangyi) and both critiques and embraces the transformation of Chinese culture under the impact of Western-style consumerism.

The Luo Brothers’ lighthearted, kitschy lacquer paintings often feature plump smiling babies, once symbols of hope and prosperity in Communist propaganda.  These rotund babes are set against and between famous foreign products and brands, as well as elements of Chinese traditional culture.  The resulting slick, glazed surfaces are cornucopia of ‘the good life’, visual explosions of signs and symbols of the promised new life of plenty and fulfillment.