Chen Fei's Beijing studio looks like a nursery for horror film producers: it's packed with a mint-condition collection of dolls from Hollywood films such as Friday the 13th and Predator. Fellow artist Zhao Yiquan is also into toys, particularly Transformers.
The two twentysomethings might be called geeks in the west, but on the mainland they are niubi, part of a 'Me generation' of hipsters who were raised under the one-child policy yet whose art has been influenced by the internet, comics, video games and globalisation.
Chen and Zhao's art will be featured in an exhibition of works by six niubi artists at Schoeni Art Gallery, in Central, later this month. The displays include paintings, sculpture, mixed digital media, 3D animation and mixed-media photography in an exhibition its organisers say makes a stark comparison between their art and that by artists from the 85 New Wave, a movement whose lives were defined by the Cultural Revolution and the opening to the west.
The niubi artists and their work have benefited from China's economic rise and interaction with the world, making them more individualistic and distant from the harsh realities faced by the previous generation, the exhibitors say.
The work of the 85 New Wave is about as relevant today as the previous five millennia of Chinese culture, says Zhao, who is from Shenyang in Liaoning province.
'If an ancient society used wood for light and a modern person came up with a candle then he would be a great person in their society because he came up with something new,' the 26-year-old says. 'At that time there was no contemporary art in China. Now art in China is on a par with art in the west.'