Stylised Pop Icon Paintings by Chinese Artist Feng Zhengjie

Internationally known for his large-scale portraits of women as stylised pop icons, Chinese painter Feng Zhengjie has been turning heads since he was a student at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts.

Technorati Tags: art, China, Feng Zhengjie, stylised pop icons

From the Saatchi-Gallery website:

“Reminiscent of Warhol’s screen printed celebrities, Feng’s paintings reflect a vision of futuristic pop. His generic portraits of women are influenced by promotional imagery: their exotic colours, electrified auras, and wind machine hair exude the glamour aesthetic of commodified desire. Feng appropriates these staples of western kitsch as a readymade lingo for a duplicity of ideology. His work is often discussed as capitalist critique, his empty eyed models posing as frivolous and vacant signifiers. Neither western nor Chinese in appearance, Feng’s femmes fatales are a super-hybrid of commercial beauty, a science fiction product of globalisation.

“Painted in massive scale, Feng’s canvases replicate the billboards from which they were inspired. Without text, or accompanying products, Feng’s paintings streamline their hard-sell ethos. Removing all distraction, he exposes the essence of temptation, magnifying the sex appeal of fantasy lifestyle and its gulf of intangibility. Transposing these disposable sentiments through his highly refined painting technique, Feng glorifies the allure of advertising as epic, enduring, and numbingly empty.”

In 1995, he moved to Beijing, and explored a variety of painting styles before gaining recognition for a colorful series of kitschy wedding portraits. Feng’s discovery of Shanghai advertising posters from the ’30s influenced two later series; his Butterfly in Love paintings depict pairs of women, with one figure nude and the other in ornamental dress, while the glowing China portraits, which he continues to paint today, emphasise extravagant hairstyles, narrowed eyes, voluptuous lips, and showy accessories.

Though his paintings are highly decorative, the essays and interviews in the beautifully illustrated monograph “Feng Zhengjie”, argue that Feng’s work is a visual metaphor for the ideological conflicts, rampant consumerism, and sense of alienation troubling contemporary China.

More on Saatchi-gallery.co.uk

“Feng Zhengjie” - Monograph

Via Artkrush.com