THEME: GREEN
2008.11 depicts an overlapping pair of spectral skulls. It is part of larger series based inspired by the Zheng’s reflections on death. The skulls are shown in profile with their deep, disproportionately large eye sockets facing the to the left. Zheng’s undulating brushwork creates a powerful impression of energy and and motion, complicating subjects’ usual association with mortality. The painting’s monochrome green palette blurs the distinction between the skulls and the background – it is not clear if we are looking at the skulls themselves, or only the ripples in the electrified atmosphere as they fly past us. While their facial outlines are nearly identical, their states of existence appear quite different. In the background, the larger cranium appears static and dark, possibly fading with the passage of time. In contrast, the skull in the foreground is luminous and dynamic; apparently leaving a wake of sparkling, swirling green energy. Is this a portrait of companionship, a progression from past to present, or a contrast of physical and spiritual? The effect is similar to a doubly exposed negative; the two images intimate a photographic progression. This suspension in space and time has made an object of movement itself, leaving its viewers to contemplate the relationship between permanence and transience.
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$35.00
Do you remember your classroom blackboard? Chen Jiao takes us back to our first years of school: a glimpse into the world of language and letters, equations and charts. With layers of colorful accents, the childlike trees and found paper, she refers to her own childhood in southern China. The grey wash over the board mimics the grey sky of her industrial town; the trees evoke the trails where she discovered new pathways on long walks. The characters on the board remind the students of their post-Cultural Revolution identities as coexisting workers, yet the yellow chart creates a rating system for a spectrum of students. It is the paradox of Chinese education: how do you distinguish yourself when you must also live as one small part to a whole? No matter where you are from, Blackboard – Jintang Middle School, by Chen Jiao touches on the universalism of learning and its ability to shape both a society’s and child’s memories.
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$35.00
