Wei Dong

Stefan Stux Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York

This work is in very good condition overall.
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Wei Dong's painting can properly be called postmodern in its fascinating pastiche of references and steadfast refusal of meaning: the tradition of Chinese landscape painting meets Western oil painting on a stage littered with Cultural Revolution paraphernalia for a drama of improbable tableaux vivants without plot or narrative.  Wei is a gifted craftsman who works intuitively, amalgamating cultural traditions and personal impressions into cryptic compositions that express, more than anything, a profound love of painting for its own sake, despite his resolutely representational aims.  As the artist recently stated, "Painting for me is an ongoing release of desire and a constant pursuit of happiness.... [W]hat I am seeking are the shapes of my own desire.  Desire itself is the force behind my paintings."^[1]  Highly idiosyncratic and with few points of comparison in Chinese contemporary art, Wei Dong has refined his signature style and motivic interests to the point of jewel-like perfection. 

The series entitled The Age of Innocence (1997) seems to take inspiration from allegorical narrative cycles of the past, such as, for example, William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress of the 1730's, in which we follow the progressive descent of a central protagonist into a world of vice.  Such cycles offer guidance for moral behavior and success amidst the pitfalls and temptations of the material world.  But in Wei's world, we can't be quite sure there is a moral message; the paintings present their emblematic nude female figures in a matter-of-fact manner, set against backgrounds of faux Chinese landscape paintings from the past.  Equally, the attributes of their character and their varied identities could not be stranger:  witness the Ambitious Lady with her cue stick, billiard balls, binoculars, whistle, and paper cut-out pistol, or The Loafer with her oversized q-tip, shoe pendant, pocket cash and dilapidated daisies in a tin can.  In each of these works, the delightful figures and scenes of the background contrast with the gargantuan portrait-like studies in the foreground.  But beyond the visual pleasure and imaginative compositional combinations, the meaning of Wei's series remains obscure. 

In the Neighbors series of the following year, we can more easily interpret the specific theme of lesbianism in Bedroom Business and Bedtime Chat.  But here, too, the paintings seem equivocal and ambiguous in their representation of the subject matter.  What, for example, is the little pig's business in his suggestive position in this peculiar boudoir, one in which an historical screen painting plays a curious compositional role?  And what does the flesh-colored bald monkey signify in the scene of undressing and caressing, in which another screen and the artist's witty delight in shadows take center stage?  These neighbors clearly live on the seedy side of town, but it seems a fascinating neighborhood of unexpected surprises to explore!

In Flag of 2006, a large acrylic on canvas, Wei Dong presents a scene that is even more cryptic.  Taking its name from the bright red flag spread on the ground at right, the painting features a collage of three women and a dog against a snowy, mountainous background.  While we are by now familiar with the strangeness of Wei's subject matter, it is the compositional complexity of the painting that seems of greatest interest.  What seems to be a distant mountain is revealed to be quite near by the shadow cast by the left-most figure, a young woman of ambiguous, perhaps hybrid ethnicity who wears a military uniform without the pants and looks off to her right.  Behind and beside her is a jumbled collage of two more female figures.  The sleeping figure lying topless on her back at the bottom center of the composition seems to cushion the partially obscured head of the other; this latter figure is clad in a blue dress with white cuffs and collar and a decorative red bow.  Legs and waist raised as though submitting to the amorous affections of her canine friend, the woman's impossible posture is the compositional focal point of the picture, the whole of which is topped off by a stuffed animal of indeterminate species.  Despite the chilly atmosphere of the painting, a sexually suggestive energy from Wei's earlier work remains.  But in Wei's recent paintings, the figures and their attributes seem to serve almost purely compositional purposes, acting as shapes and colors of interlocking puzzle pieces in what remain deeply puzzling works.  The precision of Wei's masterful painterly skills only adds to our bafflement, for there is no question that Wei Dong paints exactly what and as he wishes.

[1] Joe Martin Hill, "An interview with Wei Dong," Wei Dong: Springtime.  New York:  Stefan Stux Gallery, April 2007.