Yuxiao (Maverick) Ran (b.1996) is from Chengdu, Sichuan, China. He studied under a full government scholarship in Singapore from 2011 to 2016, during which he received his first formal art education in Victoria Junior College.
In 2020, Ran obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. and is now undertaking an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London.
Ran’s inspirations come from direct observations of the physical environment that he experiences. Using realism as his primary tool, he make works that stage man-made objects and other human traces extracted from often conflicting cultural contexts together, to create an unsettling picture of an ambiguous space. He uses written languages, iconography, and imagery of urban landscapes from places where he has lived, with minimum alterations of their original form, into one single composition. By doing so, he creates unusual visual documentations that are set to induce the audience to question the logic and reason behind the existence of any artifact they would find interesting in his work. The subjects of his work are often found dancing in between personal, emotionally charged, and broad, politically charged realms. At times these themes become inseparable.
