This painting of a yawning, shaven-headed man appearing behind an inexplicably jubilant crowd is emblematic of the style dubbed Cynical Realism by critics, which parodies state-sanctioned Socialist Realism to depict ‘the absurd, the mundane and the meaningless events of everyday life’. Scattered across the picture surface are brightly coloured roses, chrysanthemums and oleander blossoms that sail out of the sky, detached from their roots, while also recalling Mao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers campaign (1956–57), an experiment in free expression that was quickly quashed. In a society he considers full of political, social and cultural contradiction, Fang is disparaging of idealism. His characters are self-portraits, multiplied to the point of anonymity by diminishing differences in age, status and gender. The title of the work, 980810, provides its completion date – a vague and inconsequential reference that deliberately points to the mundane and repetitive.