“Ding Shilun: Janus” comprises newly commissioned paintings and a site-specific installation in the artist’s first solo US museum exhibition. Shilun’s ethereal and at times ominous works feature idiosyncratic mythologies inspired by his everyday life. Each painting acts as an individual vignette, depicting self-contained and often ambiguous scenes that utilize figuration to convey rousing emotion and simple anecdotes rather than elaborate narratives.
Shilun refers to this storytelling as a “personal fable”; the protagonists of his paintings are avatars of the artist, which he refers to as “projections and embodiments of my inner self, reflecting my confusion living across different cultures and ideologies, as well as my desire to construct my own reality.” The show takes its title “Janus,” from the Roman god of beginnings and endings, chosen by the artist to evoke this paradox in his works.
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