Top Must-See Pieces at the ICA Miami

Named for the Roman god of beginnings and endings, Ding Shilun: Janus showcases the artist's haunting, ethereal visual fables. Influenced by folklore and art history, Shilun (.1988) mimics the water-based pigments of traditional Chinese Gongbi painting, using numerous thin layers of diluted oil paint.

 

The Weight of The Oath depicts a bandaged young man with one wing, wearing orange pants wrapped with barbed wire, collapsing onto a bed. A nurse whose transparent torso reveals their bones and heart feels his neck for a pulse, while a sobbing young man with green hair, chain mail, and dragonfly wings half-sits behind them, arms outstretched to hold goblets of red wine, one of which is spilling.

 

In Smile Reveal, 2024, a skeleton reclines on its side, superimposed over the ghostly figure of a person lying on their back with their knees up, one hand running through their dark hair. Behind them, a faded female figure in a grey dress, haloed with grey butterflies, holds up a person in leopard print pants and a yellow shirt, their red hair extending out like budding plant stems.