MAMOTH is thrilled to announce its international artist residency programme 2024 with a focus on DingHong Dan's practice. Living and working in London for the duration of her residency, DongHong Dan will develop a new body of work, which will be presented at MAMOTH in late November, 2024.
DingHong Dan Studio View, MAMOTH, London 2024
Ding Hongdan's paintings focus on the real life and mental state of her peers in the current reality. Based on her solid academic background, she is adept at presenting contemporary women's multi-dimensional thoughts on daily life and social relationships through a realistic approach combined with a very unique personal perspective. The details of women depicted in her paintings, such as clothing, dress and posture, reflect a changing society in a fluid timeline, mixing reality and fantasy, the visible and the invisible, in a boundless space and overlapping identities.
Erratum and Misalignment, 2024. MG Space, Beijing, China
The Nude Call
London's open artistic environment allowed Ding Hongdan ample freedom during this residency to break through and develop her original body ‘self-portraits’ from theme to method; however, the contrasting expressions also prompted her to constantly reflect on what makes body painting so sensitive in today's northern Chinese cities, and what makes it necessary for her to be especially careful and restrained in the other side - why is depicting the human body such a sensitive matter in China? What is it about the human body that makes it necessary for her to be particularly cautious and restrained when she is in the other side of the city - why is the depiction of the human body such a sensitive matter in China?
DingHong Dan Studio View, MAMOTH, London, 2024
At the beginning of modern art education in China, the painting of the human body, which was introduced into China along with oil painting, was often subjected to the pervasive criticism of erotic aesthetics in the collective culture due to its extreme conflict with feudal statutes. Whether it was historical pictures of the erotic palace or medical illustrations, in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and even in modern civilisation, they remained sinister images that had to be completed not only by the imagination. It was not until the beginning of the last century that the Western women's liberation movement was soon to use academics and research to give a proper name to the creation of the human body; and what kind of ‘beauty’ should art convey? How should the viewer understand the boundaries of taboo and bodily instincts under the mutual checks and balances of social order and acute desires? This is also a real call that needs to be translated!
Dressing Mirror, 2024. 151 x 196 cm, from the exhibition 'Pattermaker's Maze' Shanghai, China.
Exhibition View, Artist Geneaology Study No.14, DingHing Dan: No Fear of AFRAID, Start Art Museum, Shanghai, 2023