[4][5] Stylistically, Guo Jian’s work falls within the Cynical Realism grouping that has been attached to many contemporary Chinese artists who draw from their experiences over the last four decades in China.

Guo Jian’s art focuses on the use of the female celebrity as a model patriot, a tool to motivate, influence, manipulate and ultimately serve as Ulyssean Siren.

In the book STUDIO, Australian Painters on the Nature of Creativity, author John McDonald noted: “A poster of two girls in army uniforms posed in front of the Great Wall shows how little Guo Jian actually makes up.

His paintings may seem improbable but they are near reflections of Madam Mao’s Model Revolutionary Operas, and the over-the-top style of army propaganda.

This was a period of China’s history characterized as the “Lost Decade”[13][14] when the country was victim to the internal political power struggles between Mao Zedong and his more moderate opponents.

Shortly after, PLA recruiters came to Guo Jian’s town and told him he could enter the army’s art college if he enlisted.

As part of Deng Xiaoping’s reform policies, soldiers now had to undertake a formal entrance application process to enter military college.

[4][10] In 1982 Guo Jian resigned from the army and returned to his home town and worked as a propaganda officer in a local transportation company.

In 1985 Guo Jian was one of just three students accepted into Minzu University of China art department in Beijing, out of 6000 applicants who sat the entrance exam from his province alone.

Following the Tiananmen protests and subsequent crackdown of 1989, the art sector and the overall social and political environment in Beijing and across China, remained restrictive and conservative.

Guo Jian returned to China in 2005 to explore production techniques options for developing his sculpture ‘One World One Dream’ (aka “Dirty Mind”).

[1][5] In 2014 Guo Jian was interviewed on the Australian TV series "Two Men In China" about his art and his sculpture of Tiananmen Square.

Subsequently, in June, 2014 Guo Jian was interviewed by Tom Mitchell, Beijing correspondent for the Financial Times newspaper.

As a result of that interview, a full page story was published in the weekend edition's "Lunch with the FT" section of the Financial Times immediately prior to the June 4th anniversary.

[20] The day after the offending article in the globally distributed newspaper hit newsstands, Guo Jian was arrested by Chinese authorities at his studio and detained for several weeks.