Click to embiggen.

Yao LuClick to embiggen.

Artist Yao Lu’s works look like classical Chinese landscape paintings, but they’re actually photographs of landfill garbage covered in construction netting. We trust you can all figure out the message here, and we don’t have to go all art school on your ass.

Help Grist raise $25,000 by September 30 to further advance our climate reporting
lao_yu_2

Yao Lu

Yao digitally adds in the boats, pagodas, people, and other serene-looking landscape elements later — so no, nobody’s canoeing around on a river of landfill runoff. Well. Nobody’s doing it for the sake of these photographs, anyway.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

lao_yu_3

Yao Lu

If you’re in New York, you can see Yao’s work at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery.