Jingze Du at Steve Turner

In Hollywood, artist Jingze Du’s greyscale figures blend Cubism’s distortion with selfie culture and Hollywood references. In many of the portraits, Zu’s subjects hold iPhones up towards their faces as if capturing a selfie snap in a mirror. Set within matte black voids, Zu paints his figures with elongated faces and cubist piece-meal bodies, offering critiques of vanity alongside reverence for fashion and popular trends. 

An exaggerated popped collar or puffed sleeve feel like earnest explorations into garment construction. His small painting “Prada” elongates the elegant silhouette of a Prada heel into a bulbous and cartoonish blob. In a second gallery, Zu’s world pops into color with hazy, large scale spray painted works laying bare the artist’s array of references.

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Photo: Jingze Du at Steve Turner (installation view). Image courtesy of the artist and Steve Turner.