Fabricated
Song Ling
宋陵
Production date
2019
Object Detail
Media
ink on paper
Measurements
8 parts, each 55 x 40 cm
Notes
Song Ling chose surgical instruments as the starting point for a series of ink paintings. He says, ‘For me, surgical instruments are very mysterious, as they are used inside a human body, and the complexity and miraculous forms of human organs are far beyond our imagination... My interest in these instruments is primarily related to their shapes and forms. They are sculptures, perfect works.’ Song Ling studied Chinese painting at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou) and his mastery of the precise, detailed gongbi style is evident here in his depiction of these medical implements, altered just enough to render them alarmingly surreal. Each painting is made up of at least 20 layers of ink, slowly and carefully applied. Song says this painstaking process requires great patience: there are no shortcuts, ‘a bit like a bench worker who polishes a tool, who has to work slowly to reach its accuracy’. He likens his method to a form of Zen meditation.
Accession number
2019.076