Leng Jian

Leng Jian kept painting the same cramped alley behind his studio for years, turning its peeling posters and flickering bulb into paint-blotched ghosts. A friend once joked he’d outlived the alley itself. In the 1990s, he traded bright socialist murals for these night-scenes, layering ink and oil until the bricks looked wet with memory. If you’ve walked Shanghai’s brick hutong after dusk, you’ll recognize the glow he chased. Tap his Untitled (Painting) from 1998—cobblestones shine like oil slicks, and a single bicycle shadow tells the whole street’s story.