Do you see Liu Bolin?

[Fairportfan]

Liu Bolin hides in plain sight.

He's probably easiest to spot in this photo than in any of the others that the link above leads to...

(No - there's no photoshop or other image modification)

[Jabberwonky]

He's just trying to avoid the fate of his great aunt Anne...

[Dave]

He's just trying to avoid the fate of his great aunt Anne...

Hunh?

Standing in the vegetable aisle at the market hardly seems like the best way to avoid running into Henry V-8th!

[Julie]

It's mind-boggling how much time and talent goes into making him disappear like that. Who paints him??

[Fairportfan]

It's mind-boggling how much time and talent goes into making him disappear like that. Who paints him??

All i know about him is what's in the captions of the slideshow i linked.

Well, and this, from WIkipedia (which i just looked up):

Hiding in the City

Liu Bolin was moved to create his "Hiding in the City" series after the Chinese government destroyed Beijing artist village Suo Jia Cun in November 2005. At the time of this destruction, Liu Bolin had been working in Suo Jia Cun, which had been previously named Asia's largest congregation of artists. Prompted by his emotional response to the demolition of this site, Liu decided to use his art as a means of silent protest, calling attention to the lack of protection Chinese artists had received from their own government. Through the use of his own body in his practice of painting himself into various settings in Beijing, Liu created a space for the Chinese artist, preserving their social status and highlighting their often troubled relationship with their physical surroundings.

In his work, Liu has always given special attention to the various social problems that accompany China's rapid economic development, making social politics the crux of his pictorial commentaries. In "Hiding in the City", Liu made one of his particular focuses slogans as an educational tool used within Communist societies, pointing out that many people become used to the slogans over time and cease to pay conscious attention to these messages' effects on the public's thinking. By painting his body into some such slogans, Liu forces the viewer to acknowledge the messages and, in the process, to reconsider the circumstances of one's own life.

The "Hiding in the City" series has inspired similar subsequent series by Liu Bolin. In particular, "Shadow" draws on the same concept of the helplessness of the individual; however, instead of taking the individual in the face of society as its focal point, "Shadow" explores the relationship of the individual to its natural environment. Rather than painting himself into the background of various man-made structures, as he did in "Hiding in the City", here Liu lay on surfaces during periods of rain, keeping the space directly below his body dry. The flat human figure created by his presence always quickly disappeared when Liu moved away, demonstrating the extent to which humans are helpless before their environment.

Liu Bolin followed up his Beijing series of "Hiding in the City" with two derivative series of performances captured in Venice and New York City. Following the method of painting himself into the cityscapes, Liu choose Venice for its significance within the Western art tradition and New York City for the potency of the underlying conflicts between humans and the objects they create. In service to this project, Liu painted himself into such socially-loaded backgrounds as Wall Street and the Tiles for America 9/11 memorial.

In February 2012, Eli Klein Fine Art Gallery, which represents the artist, announced a collaborative project between Liu Bolin and designers Gaultier, Valentino, Lanvin and Missoni that was featured in the March 2012 issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine.