Jingze Du

Saint Maison

Interview with Jingze Du

A short conversation with the freshest Chinese artist based and flexin’ in Dublin.

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November 21, 2020

S.M
“What’s your studio like?”

J.D
“An orderly mess. I have only the essentials in my studio, though it’s still crowded. I’m currently doing a residency at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.”

S.M
“Any Daily rituals / routines?”

J.D
“I like to listen to Podcasts and catch up on readings during my daily commutes. They lend me an outsider’s perspective and help me view and understand my work as someone else.”

S.M
“Who inspires you? Or What inspires you?”

J.D
“Inspiration comes from everywhere. Educating myself with as much history as possible helps me better understand the context of my practice.”

S.M
“The portraits all have an elongated, and distorted feature. Perhaps this is what most of us know your work for. This style, what are you trying to say? What are you exploring here?”

J.D
“I think I initially took cues from Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Many other musicians are also distorting and layering their own vocals to create a more soulful and impactful sound. I tried to apply that technique to a visual medium. I want to test the effects that distortion has on images, and how it may affect the viewers engagement with it. The skull in the ‘The Ambassadors’ encouraged me to also think about the possibility of looking at an image from more than one viewpoint. I imagined how my viewers may engage with the image differently depending on where they stand in the room. I don’t think I have made what I set out to do, which makes each new work interesting for me. I like to allow a painting happen organically during its creation, sometimes diverting from my initial idea, and becoming more interesting to me through these changes.”

S.M
“Most of your work are In Black/white grey scale. Back in the days, you used to do collage-like paintings. Tell us about your evolution of style.”

J.D
“The earlier paintings were trying to explore too many things at once. The portrait paintings are in fact still collage paintings, for instance, a nose from one image and eyes from another. The overall series can also act like a collage. I learnt it’s best to keep things simple, and trust the work to grow organically.”

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