Triangle Gallery is pleased to announce "So close so far", its first personal exhibition of paintings by Jingge Dong (b.1989 in Beijing , lives and works in Venice, Italy). Opening reception December 7 at 19:00.
Through January 22, 2022.

Signal lights of the ship-home burn in the dark, or it's just a garland that we have been looking at for too long. If you close your eyes, the flashes continue to pulsate against a black background. The interior is filled with fog, like a flood, or a stream in the sun turns into a burning mirror, and plants from the bottom make their way to the surface and sway with the current.

The works by Jingge Dong seem to uncover our consciousness between wakefulness and sleep, when a dream undermines reality. The present, scraps of memories and fantasies are both ghostly and distinct in equal measure. This duality marks a certain trend, bigger than the imagery language of one particular artist.

The distinction between figurative and abstract painting is becoming less and less relevant. The figures lose their outlines, turning into color spots - the elements of the composition; abstraction borrows plasticity from biological forms, everyday objects, natural phenomena and optical effects. Here and there, hybrids appear that defy classification, and the very need to hang labels disappears. Behind the shoulders of contemporary artists is the experience of endless schools and their criticism, ahead of them - complete freedom without formal restrictions. It is easy to get lost in outer space, the more interesting is the individual strategy of each author, composing oneself out of thin air.

Jingge Dong was born in 1989, received his art education in Shanghai, then became a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and a master's degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. At first glance, the artist moves in the mainstream of the latest Chinese art - vivid visuality, technical excellence, constant dialogue-dispute with tradition. At the same time, Dong is well trained in "traditional" figurative European painting and has been integrated into the Western context for long now. The eternal East-West duality in this case is rather a balance aside from the extremes. So the artist managed to avoid one of those - what the professionals label as "too chinese" - pretentious showiness, kitsch, replicating oneself even in a non-multiple technique. On the contrary, we are dealing with a special pictorial sensibility. A light hand is felt behind the skill; showiness is balanced by melancholy, muted colors. Everything seems to be balancing on a fine line - as thin as the stripe between figurative and abstract, real and imaginary, seen and imagined.



Alexander Merekin