The unbearable shortness of being

Artist Yan Peiming says the group of self-portraits, On My Knees, depicts his mixed feelings about holding a show in his motherland, China. Photos Provided to China Daily

'It was fortunate the Shanghai Art Academy rejected me," Yan Peiming recalls. "If they hadn't, my life would have been totally different."

The 64-year-old, having lived in Dijon, France, since the early 1980s, is one of the first Chinese artists after the opening-up and reform to have settled abroad and developed an international career.

In 2009, the Louvre staged a solo exhibition for him, which makes him the only other contemporary artist to have works shown at the museum besides Pablo Picasso.

Yan is exhibiting his latest works at the Beijing Center for the Arts, as part of this year's celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France.

The show includes a group of three huge black-and-white self-portraits, titled On My Knees, which depict Yan, half-naked on his knees, depressed, struggling and with a touch of sourness on his twisted faces.

"I have kind of mixed feelings about holding a show in my motherland," Yan says, lighting a cigar and slowly puffing on it. "These works are only for this show and I am only kneeling in China."

In another room is a portrait of the artist's mother and on the adjacent wall a self-portrait of Yan kneeling, which seems as if he is prostrating himself before her.

Yan says it sounded cool to name the exhibition Dead and Alive. But it is more than that - it is more about his attitude toward life. "Death is definite since one is born, but life is indefinite. Life is of greater importance than death."

Yan was born in Shanghai in 1960, and says that during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) those who could draw well would be chosen to draw propaganda pictures for the school.