Chinese artist Sun Xun has been selected for the second annual Audemars Piguet art commission. The artist will present his new work at Art Basel in Miami Beach in December 2016.

The Swiss manufacturer of luxury watches founded the commission last year to support artists “in the creation of works of exceptional complexity, precision, and experiential impact on an ongoing basis.”

With the backing of the watchmaker, invited artists are provided with “the necessary resources” and “access to advanced tools, craft expertise, or sophisticated technology to realize important new creative projects.”

Sun—who is considered one of China’s most talented emerging artists—works across a multitude of media, including painting, woodcuts, traditional Chinese ink and charcoal drawing, and stop-motion animations created from hundreds of drawings.

The artist’s commission will be unveiled at Art Basel in Miami Beach in December.
Photo: Art Basel in Miami Beach.

His works are often presented in large-scale immersive environments combining earthly and mythological symbolism borrowed from Chinese and western influences.

Maxwell Hearn, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2013 survey of Chinese contemporary art—in which Sun’s work was included—described him as “one of the youngest and most prolific video artists active in China today” in the catalogue essay for the show.

“Though his images share the same angular, rough-hewed quality of the New Woodcut Movement, their message is darker and less inspiring, a dystopian vision of rootlessness and confusion,” Hearn wrote.

Sun Xun has exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Shanghai Biennial, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The inaugural winner of the commission was Swiss artist and composer Robin Meier. His large-scale installation Synchronicity explored the bioluminescent light emitted by fireflies.