Cheng Lingya's Setting Sun
Li Dafang
李大方
Production date
2012
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas, painted wood
Measurements
pentaptych 378 x 400 cm
Notes
Li Dafang’s work is often inspired by memories of growing up in Shenyang, Liaoning, a centre of heavy industry that gradually lost its economic importance through the Reform and Opening period, when industrialisation became focused on the Pearl River Delta in southern China. He explains the seemingly apocalyptic imagery in this painting as the depiction of a real scene in Shenyang and the figures as real people. The work tells the story of an ordinary family conflict that has escalated into the public space of the city street, which Li describes as a very common phenomenon in society at this unsettling time of social transformation. The artist says that he incorporated the real-life event into a collage-like theatrical setting and referenced mural painting with the scale and technique of the work in order to emphasise its dramatic nature: ‘Paintings are by-products and remnants of the process of transforming real people’s daily lives to a false conceptual visual form. The painting exists in the interrelationship between being alive and the artwork as a ‘noumenon’, a thing that exists independently of human senses or perceptions.’ The ear attached to the red panel on the right-hand side functions as a metaphor about surveillance in contemporary society, suggesting the ubiquitous presence of listeners.
Accession number
2015.613