Galerie Paris-Beijing presents the return of Liu Bolin with a new series of his camouflage photo-performance images as part of his ‘hiding in the city’ project.

[Cheers thisiscolossal]

Chinese artist, Liu Bolin, has mastered the art of invisibility. The Beijing-based artist has become known as the “invisible man” because to his ability to use his own body as an art material and disappear into his surroundings.

His latest pictures show him barely visible despite standing in a shopping mall aisle packed with soda pop.

Another image sees the artist blending into a tractor.

Liu Bolin‘s body art began when he lost his house in Beijing for the city’s preparations for the 2008 Olympics Games. He used his body to camouflage in his surroundings as a sign of protest.

One single photo takes up to 10 hours to prepare – Liu uses himself as a blank canvas, and with a little help from an assistant, he paints his body to merge as seamlessly as possible with what is behind him. The results are incredible – sometimes passers-by don’t even realize he is around until he moves.

While his camouflage artworks are really mind blowing, he’s here with a message: “The situation for artists in China is very difficult and the forced removal of the artist’s studio is in fact my direct inspiration of this series of photographs, Hiding In The City…I am standing, but there is a silent protest, the protest against the environment for the survival, the protest against the state.”