A model composes herself during the Ukrainian Fashion Week 2020-2021 at the Mystetskyi Arsenal National Art and Culture Museum Complex on February 4, 2020. (Photo by Irynka Hromotska/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Karl Bang's paintings are unique because he combines totally different styles of painting within the same format. It is very difficult to design a balanced composition with realistic elements that are juxtaposed with flat colors and patterns. The faces of his subjects are painted realistically in the Western tradition with subtle gradations of color; while, his figures and costumes vignette into abstracted shapes, lines, flat colors and patterns that reflect Karl's background in China. It is as though there are different visual languages being spoken within his paintings.

Revelers of the Holi Festival of Colors dance after throwing colored powders in the air in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, August 9, 2014. The festival is fashioned after the Hindu spring festival Holi, which is mainly celebrated in the north and east areas of India. (Photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo)

A man applies colored powder on his friend's face during celebrations marking Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. The festival heralds the arrival of spring. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

A young Free Syrian Army fighter holds a rifle in Haresta neighbourhood of Damascus January 16, 2013. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Esther Abad free diving in Cenote Chukum, in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico on June 13, 2022. (Photo by Wojciech Dopierala/Mercury Press)

A man drinks at a "colored" water cooler in a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City, July 1939. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress)