These Descendant Body paintings by Chinese-Australian artist / painter Fan Dongwang are based on the Renaissance body, but unlike the traditional image, they bear little resemblance to the “normal” human body. They are depersonalised objects that resemble black and white plaster body parts, cool and inorganic and easy to reshape. The background floral patterns which come into contact with the body become part of its image, and the boundaries that once separated the physical and psychical are eventually transgressed. This is an imaginative vision of the new bodily world as a huge map of the postmodern psyche. The lines and shapes delineate an immense space with no boundaries and depth, full of aching, longing and distorted bodies forming an assemblage endlessly floating on the blue surface, emerging and submerging, shrinking and extending. 

 

All paintings are acrylic on canvas.