Artist, Model and Dog
Wei Rong
韦蓉
Production date
2014
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
142 x 102 cm
Notes
In the western tradition of the female nude, as John Berger famously said, ‘Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’ Wei Rong subverts this male gaze – her subjects are not the idealised nudes of old master paintings, voluptuous goddesses or nymphs, but rather ordinary women in ordinary contemporary spaces. Here, the artist and her model play with a little dog in a cluttered domestic interior. Neither is focused on the viewer, and the model’s body is not depicted as an object of sexual fantasy. Wei Rong’s technique of painting from photographs projected onto her canvas heightens and emphasises the realism of both style and subject.
Accession number
2015.286