The Convert 5
Dong Wensheng
董文胜
Production date
2009
Object Detail
Media
inkjet print
Measurements
60 x 50 cm
Notes
The Convert series (2010) is in marked contrast to Dong Wensheng’s earlier works. Emerging from a deep chiaroscuro, against brown robes, and encircled by prayer beads wrapped around wrists or loosely held, the weathered hands of Dong’s subjects are seen in devotional gestures — some evoke the Christian gesture of prayer, palms pressed together, others recall Buddhist mudras. We do not see any more than the hands, creating a sense of deep unease. In each image a mutilation, tattoo, an injury or something disturbing is apparent: The Convert 5 shows hands clasped in a prayerful gesture. With broken, dirt-encrusted fingernails and skin covered with mud, or perhaps with ink, the narrative of worship is disrupted and made ambiguous. A development from earlier works, in which the artist photographed tattoos and scars on the bodies of teenagers, this series creates a profoundly ambiguous narrative focused on the figure of the outsider, the penitent.
Accession number
2013.236