Janus: Ding Shilun: ICA Miami

3 December 2024 - 27 April 2025 Off-site

Overview

“Ding Shilun: Janus” debuts a group of newly commissioned paintings and a site-specific installation in the artist’s first solo US museum exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. 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.

The artist 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.

Shilun’s paintings draw from a wide range of reference images, traditions, and techniques. The works’ pageantry as well as their supernatural and satirical themes are influenced by Nuo opera—performances from the Chinese folk religion Nuoism––as well as by prominent collections of Chinese folklore and the celebrated prints of Francisco Goya, such as the series Los caprichos (The Caprices, 1797–98). To mimic the water-based pigments of traditional Chinese gongbi painting, Shilun applies numerous thin layers of diluted oil paint. This delicate method belies the volatile iconography of his works, evoking the contradictions and frictions of day-to-day life.