Qi Zhilong is a prominent painter known for his political pop images, mostly of Chinese women during the Cultural Revolution. His consumer icon series helped him gain recognition and fame for his art internationally. His works are plain and realistic, at times sweet representations of pig-tailed women from the 1950s and 1960s, followed by brassy consumers in the 1970s and 1980s.
Qi Zhilong’s work gained international fame around 1994 with his Consumer Icons series, rendering a superficial and shallow pop culture, forecasting an onset of consumption in China. However, by 1995, Qi began work on a series with more depth - his portraits of beautiful young women in uniform.