Under great influence of academic art, it seems that the composition and vocabulary of classic works have been deeply rooted in Chan Yu- Fan's way of thinking. That explains why it is normal for people to find him sitting in front of the white canvases, meditating.

The artist adores the western classical painting compositions. He tends to place main figures in large scenes with exquisite geometrical composition. Creation of works resembles the construction of a building; thus, artists are architects to some degree. They have to combine, arrange and organize the objects on the picture and tackle with various painterly problems. Chan Yu-Fan, the “Architect of Oil Painting”, is not only talented in creating but also excellent at implementing. He successfully concludes the art up to now in his own unique way.

I. Composition and Emotion

It is necessary for the creator of scenario realism, like the director of a play, to have better ability of integration than other realistic artists. For example, the setting of scenes and viewpoints, body languages of figures, costumes, facial expressions, objects, environmental factors, and the atmosphere as a whole need to be taken into consideration.

The work, What Do You Believe? depicts a fashionable single woman warming herself in front of a television on a round-shaped island. The tidal waves and dark sky behind her foreshadow the upcoming storm. Her body line and television constitute a triangle composition. However, her sight focusing only on the electric appliance seems to ignore the personalized boat and the hanging earth god. The extended line of the paddle which points to the direction of the earth god implies the sense of powerlessness.

Dawn on the Moon portrays four members of a band facing the dawning sunlight, symbolizing their unifying goal. Besides, the diverse seats, attires and musical instruments of them at the same time demonstrate their disparate personalities.

Advancing to the future creates a sharp contract among the three girls floating in the air and the slowly moving coal train. The floating girls suggest the artist's uncertainty about the future and his desire for family. The human-shaped train meandering on the endless paths expresses Chan Yu-Fan's memory of his policeman father.

II. The Classical Geometrical Composition

The artist adapts Rule of Thirds in The Rescue Mission. This technique divides vertical and horizontal surface into three parts and thus produces four converging points, causing viewers to focus on the figures’ eyes. Chan Yu-Fan also cleverly arranges the figures’ body language, allowing viewers to follow the traces of his thinking. In addition, he forms a radical composition on the bound hands in order to build a sense of nervousness.

Sleeping Moonlight can be regard as a masterpiece out of a hazardous composition. Chan Yu-Fan divides the picture into two using the tree on the center. This ought to be an over-symmetrical and conservative composition, but the center alignment lines (both vertical and horizontal) separate four parts of the painting, respectively the ocean, the forest, the campfire and the figure. The composition thus creates an intriguing effect which resembles storyboards.

Voiceless Island forges an imagery disaster scene. The six victims represent different social roles: the leader, the giver, the receiver (the sleeper), the selfish one, the help seeker and the loner. The help seeker rests her sight on the giver and the leader, aligning the three roles' eyes sights into a line, while the giver looks at the receiver. The leader always fixes her eyes on a long distance. The line composed of their looks and the sunset together generate two diagonal lines. Moreover, the lamp, symbolizing the ideas of guidance and rescue, sheds its light on the surrounding three girls and emphasizes the selfless giver. Also, the heads of the five girls correspond to a forward five-pointed star. The wrecked aircraft and spring bed form the biggest triangle composition, creating stability among the roaring waves. Lastly, the tiny parachute in the sky, together with the heads of the giver and the loner constitutes a parallel yet smaller triangle. The images of the parachute, the giver and the loner cause massive contrast themselves.

III. The Relation between Objects and Spaces

Pavel Petrovich Chistyakov (1832-1919), a Russian painter, once said that,“Any three-dimensional forms are composed of many connected, twisted and transparent surfaces.” Aside from the highlights, intermediate levels, light and dark boundary line, reflection and projection, people have to consider an object's relation with its existing space to create the three-dimensional effect. According to the various viewpoints, the usage of parallel perspective, angular perspective or oblique perspective has its own rule. The implementation of atmospheric perspective needs careful evaluation because the uncertain factors of air and sun. Finally, considering the traits of human beings’eyes, the control of an object's brink is not to be neglected.

The huge composition in Chan Yu-Fan's paintings highlights the importance of “space shaping”. He often needs to deal with objective objects through subjective observations. The Crown Battle utilizes different kinds of contours to tackle with the relation between the three girls and their background. The figures are depicted in refined details yet the background are blurred, covered or weaken in some elements to establish the sense of perspective.

Through Venus 1, viewers are able to observe the artist's interest in “space shaping”. He constructs the sense of space and volume by adapting the technique of perspective. The spot light underlines the main characters, the man and his sculpture, and leaves others in shadow. It is natural for viewers to be attracted by the left part first and then turn to the right part to seek a relatively empty space. This leads to the swinging of their looks between the two statues.

IV. The Rhythm of Brush Strokes and Colors

The issue of eternity and moment is what Chan Yu-Fan often discusses in his creation. Therefore, he adds many flowing strokes to the demonstration of natural scenes to signify the instant sketch of the everlasting time. The density of strokes at the same time constructs the sense of rhythm.

The water in the foreground of Yellow Boat can be interpreted as an expression of the painter's characteristics. He combines complementary colors which are often adapted by impressionist and rich strokes to fully express the tranquility of the bay in the evening. The Passerby actually depicts a building in construction beside an empty coast. The architecture basements are similar to one well after another. The flowing strokes on the cave represent the traces of excavators. Time seems to stop on the construction site, bringing the viewers' sight into the bottomless pit by the swirling strokes.

If we observe Chan Yu-Fan's previous works carefully, it is not difficult to discover his special arrangement of lights. Natural lights such as sun, moon and stars as well as artificial lights like lamps, spot light, flashlight, torches and gas injection often appear in his paintings. John Constable regards sky as the main organ of sensibility; therefore, light resembles the spirit of a picture.

In Greenhouse 1, the artist ingeniously arranges a “cat lamp” to become the warm illumination at night. Via the light, the viewers are able to put their focus on the face of the main character which contrasts the projection of the artist in the background. The work catches viewers' eye by the subtle transformation of the light color and the perspective technique on the objects.

V. The Language of Art

John Constable (1776-1837) once wrote, “Scenery is nothing but the pronoun of emotion.” The existence of scenery is based on the presence of human beings. Chan Yu-Fan is good at conveying the concepts by portraying the stories and behaviors of figures. This kind of creationcontains many of his unique “language marks” and “representation system”. His visual creation is influenced by feeling media, expression elements and scenery factors. Feeling media means cognitive, sense and science. The artist displays a series of images about meaningful elements in his life. Viewers are able to decipher the feeling by looking at the interaction of the main characters and their facial expressions. Expression elements contain theme, space, atmosphere and tone, while scenery factors signify the stars, clouds, light, sea, mountain, plants and architecture.

One of Titian's(1488~1576) masterpiece, Sleeping Venus, was first painted by Giorgione(1477~1510). After he passed away, Titian continued to complete the scenery and sky. He integrated his nostalgic feeling into the painting, and to some degree, “reinterpreted” Giorgione. Nowadays, Chan Yu-Fan as the contemporary artist redefines the beauty of Venus and adds more elements and scenery. Venus 3 is the artist's combination of illusionist scenery and figures; hence, it has a strong “sense of drama”. The man entering the tunnel implies the original attraction of sex – Libido. The woman above the cave wears a mysterious mask, receiving the worship of males. The visual games plotted by the painter create one masterpiece after another. Through these cleverly arranged elements, viewers find hard to move their eyes from the paintings. In addition to the entertainment resulted from the wobbling of eye focuses, the artist also combines the meaning of iconography, proceeding the reinterpretation of viewers in surreal paintings.

The world and Taiwan both undergo rapid changes. On the island which is colonized by several cultures, the face of our contemporary art gradually becomes clearer. With the birth of the Internet, the interaction among artists turns to be more frequent. Through indirect self-narration, Chan Yu-Fan discusses international culture based on Taiwan, exhibiting the collective experience of Taiwan under globalization in his own works.