No. 6
He Jia
和嘉
Production date
2005
Object Detail
Media
acrylic on canvas
Measurements
200 x 280 cm
Notes
One of He Jia’s characteristic ‘balloon men’ flies through the urban concrete and steel landscape of the modern city. He appears to be escaping the beam of a searchlight directed from a helicopter hovering ominously above him. Orange smoke billows from the window of one of the concrete boxes behind him. A play on the linear perspective system of western art history, He Jia’s exercise leads the eye to a vanishing point hidden in the distance. Ostensibly as simple and cheerful as a child’s story-book illustration, there is yet something a little sinister in He Jia’s brightly coloured cityscape, with its allusion to the shiny world of advertising in the billboard on the left, featuring a woman’s hand, a can of Coca-Cola and a pair of Lolita-like heart-shaped sunglasses.
Accession number
2006.012