Ding Hongdan: Still Mad

Rendered in bright, glossy oils and stylised strokes, Ding Hongdan’s collection of paintings en masse is a dip into image-obsessed youth. Spectating within the multi-tableaux of bright, bold figures drawn from the artist’s own friendship group as well as internet sources, the effect is a striking psychedelic whirlwind of overwhelm. In this way, it echoes internet culture and young people striking out who want the freedom to pose, play, dress up and come together in party and fashion subcultures. They perform their individuality in flashy fits and show off to the ever-present lens, and as such they make different choices and inhabit different subjectivities to their elders. As Ding notes, the collective endeavour by friendship groups of young people in China to leave their hometowns for the city lights, or leave China for the hedonism of the West, is their way of freeing themselves from tradition or the expectation of parents or previous generations. She sees the paintings as a celebration of friends, playfulness and joy for London – something the city’s regular grey inhabitants may often omit.

Motifs appear in some of the works, for example the ‘ghost’ in Stranger which she says is the spectre of the diaspora and the desire to feel liberated. China, having changed hugely over the last twenty years with the advent of the internet and more access to Western culture, still has limitations on what can be painted and exhibited. The artist’s quasi self-portraits in which she inserts herself into the canon of Western art history, depict her victorious on horseback, or reclining as Venus. These will not be exhibited in her home city of Beijing, where in the 798 Art District images of breasts have to be blurred by mosaics, much like Instagram’s own content rules. She notes that Chinese art does not have a history of realistic figure painting, so this is something that captures her imagination, particularly in the large free galleries at the heart of London. As an artist in residence here for a short period, she inhabits a kind of diasporic elation when she’s in the city, with the opportunity to express personal and sexual freedoms.

Ding cites Chinese female artist Pan Yuliang, who studied in Paris in the 1920s, as one of the first Chinese artists to go to Europe. Pan Yuliang painted many nudes of herself and other women and then returned to China to experience what might later be termed slut- shaming and general vilification. ‘It is over one hundred years since the nude came to China, but it's still a very sensitive subject,’ Ding reflects. The artist’s own process of representing herself this way, as with many female artists before her, has allowed her to learn and to embody a truer sense of self. In the post-pandemic era, China's ideological control is becoming increasingly strict, and artists' freedom of creation is reportedly being confined. Ding notes, ‘where you paint or live is not important, the most important thing is the freedom of creation, independent personality and critical spirit.’